Page 197 of Money Reigns
My throat locks. My vision blurs.
She left me.
Sheleft me.
Without a word. On herbirthday.
She just—
Something snaps.
I lunge for the closet, rip the clothes from their hangers, hurl them across the room. The dresser drawer slams against my fist, wood splintering as I tear it out and dump it. Her perfume bottle shatters against the wall, scent exploding, choking me, burning me.
I tear the sheets off the bed, the mattress skidding half off the frame. My hand slams through the mirror, glass raining down, blood streaking across the shards.
I destroy it all.
Because it’s mine.
Because she was mine.
And she walked away.
The rage is white-hot, animal. But beneath it—beneath it is something worse.
Hollow.
The kind of hollow that swallows men whole.
I drop to my knees in the wreckage, glass biting through slacks, blood dripping from my knuckles. My chest heaves. My throat burns.
“Olivia,”I rasp, the word breaking, useless.
She left me.
And I don’t know how to breathe without her.
Chapter forty
Olivia
Changing in the airport bathroom was a choice.
The heater blew weak warmth into the freezing tiles. I had to rub my arms just to pull on the sleeves of my sweater.
Standing in line for a ticket was a choice.
Boarding a three o’clock flight while knowing War was probably tearing apart half the city looking for me?
That was a choice too.
Mychoice.
Because for months, Warren Beaumont has been making all the choices for me.
But crying in my first-class seat next to the nicest stranger alive? That wasn’t a choice.
The woman beside me slid a tissue into my hand without a word, then pressed her unopened snack into my lap like it was medicine.
