Between Love and Hate

Between Love and Hate
POV: Isla

“Now or never, Isla. Do it while he’s weak. Do it before he wakes.” The phone was still pressed to my ear, the stranger’s voice cutting through the silence like a blade.

Damian lay motionless in front of me, his chest rising and falling in uneven motions. I couldn’t breathe, not when I saw the blood-stained sheets and his hand wrapped in bandages.

He looked….weak, fragile. No longer the ruthless and cold Damian Cross who ruled through fear. He was no longer the monster I swore I would destroy.

Just a man whose life is now dependent on the decision I am about to make. “Pick up the pillow,” the voice pressed, low and deliberate. 

“It’s right by his bedside. Take it and press down on his head until he stops moving. Three minutes, maybe less. That’s all it takes for him to die.”

My hand moved before my mind could realize what was happening. With my trembling fingers, I reached for the pillow at the edge of the bed beside Damian. The fabric was too soft for what I was about to do.

My knees had already given up underneath me, refusing to stand still over him. He didn’t move or fight—just lay there with his dark hair falling over his forehead, his lips parted slightly while he slept.

I was staring at the one man who killed my father five years ago and staged it as a suicide. The man who defended me at college and let them know I was his wife even though our marriage is not real.

The same man whom I couldn’t stop craving for even when I swore revenge on him.

“Hold it over his face,” the stranger’s voice drifted me off my thoughts, his tone final and commanding. 

“Seal the edges with your hands so no air escapes. Don’t hesitate even for a minute, Isla. Monsters like Damian Cross don’t deserve mercy.”

My grip on the pillow grew tighter while I could literally hear my pulse pounding so loudly I thought Damian might hear it even as he lay on the bed unconsciously.

“I… I can’t,” I whispered, but my body betrayed me as I lifted the pillow higher to his face.

“Yes, you can. And you must,” the voice snapped. “He won’t spare you once he finds out that you already know the truth about what he did. This is your one chance to take revenge for your father, Isla ....”

“Kill him!!”

My shaky hands hovered around his face, shaking so violently I almost dropped the pillow. Damian groaned in his sleep, just a low sound of twitch at the corner of his lips as though he was caught in some dream.

God. He was still alive and breathing. How the hell would I strangle him with this pillow?

The pillow loosened in my grip. One part of me is screaming—finish it before it’s too late and he opens his eyes. The other part….the other part that wanted to collapse beside him and hold him so tight.

To press my face against his chest just to feel his heartbeat and be sure he wouldn’t leave me all alone in this world. I sank into the spiral of emotions overwhelming me.

The words poured out of my mouth before I could stop them. “You killed my father,” I whispered, my voice shaking.“You destroyed everything in my life. I should milk you right now. Why can’t I just—” 

My breath stopped, quiet sobs shattering through my throat. “Why can’t you just fucking die so I wouldn’t have to kill you?”

I forced myself upright, the pillow tightly clenched in my hands like a weapon as tears blurred my vision. I hated the damn tears.

“Isla,” the voice hissed through the phone, growing impatient. “Do it now because you won’t get another chance. Don’t make me remind you how he killed your father.”

I bit down on my lip until I tasted blood. My hands wouldn’t stop trembling. “He doesn’t deserve your pity,” the stranger spat. 

“Do you want to keep sleeping next to the man who ruined you? Or do you want revenge? You have three minutes, Isla. Three minutes and you would finally be free of Damian Cross.”

His words hit like bullets, forcing my shaking hands to lift again. The pillow hovered inches above Damian’s face as my tears dripped onto the soft fabric. 

I stared down at him, memorizing every angle and line of his face that haunted me. His lips curved faintly, as if some ghost of a smile lingered even in his pain.

I hated him so much but needed him at the same time. And I couldn’t decide which side of me was struggling to take over. The phone hissed with static, then the stranger’s voice rose very angrily now.

“Do it, Isla! End him before he ends you! If you let him live, you’ll regret it until the day you die. He won’t spare you—he never will. And I won’t be able to protect you next time.”

The words cut me deeper and deeper inside, as much as I hated to hear it—it was the truth. Damian would never let me live once he wakes up. I raised the pillow with aching arms from the weight of it.

My breath came in slow and ragged forms, as if time itself was holding its breath with me. Three minutes. That’s all it would take and Damian would be dead.

I leaned forward, the pillow hovering closer to his face and the fabric almost brushing his skin.

Then—

Without warning, Damian’s eyes snapped open.

I gasped, the pillow falling from my grip as his weak eyes locked onto mine. There was no fury in his gaze, no coldness. It was something….something I’d never seen before.

“Isla…” 

His voice was not a command, or a threat— it was a plea. His gaze dropped onto the pillow on the floor.