Page 132 of Crushed Vow

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She doesn’t scream anymore when I say cruel things. She just stares. Like her soul stepped outside of her body and left me with a hollow shell.

I wanted to be the man who loved her, who earned her.

But I became the man she needs therapy to forget.

The man she’ll have nightmares about long after I’m dead.

I lie awake some nights and imagine what would’ve happened if I hadn’t leashed her that day. If I’d held her instead of humiliating her.

But there’s no undoing it.

There’s no going back to a version of her that still believed I was capable of love.

She was soft once. Sweet.

Now she’s brittle. Haunted. And I did that.

God help me, I don’t know how to stop being the monster who did that.

December 1, 2024:

She found out.

About my mother. About what my father did. About what her mother let happen.

I didn’t mean for her to know—not like that.

But my sister told her. And Charlotte looked at me like she understood. Like she wanted to hold me.

And that made me snap.

I couldn’t stand the look in her eyes—like I was something to be pitied. I felt naked. Exposed. Filthy.

So I called her what I promised I never would.

I said, “Get out, you slutty daughter of a bitch.”

Just like that. Like she was nothing.

She flinched, but didn’t cry. Just walked out of my study.

I waited an hour.

Then two.

Then I checked the cameras.

She never came back.

And this time... she didn’t just walk out.

She disappeared.

I’ve sent men across borders. Paid off cartels, bribed police, called in favors from enemies I swore I’d never speak to again.

I’ve stayed up for weeks, reading code from hacked airport footage, scanning blurry CCTV stills, hoping one would show her face.

I haven’t eaten. I haven’t slept. I’ve put bullets through the mirrors just to stop seeing myself.

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