Chapter 69

Chapter 69
Elise's POV:

My wrist hurt like hell.

His fingers locked around my bone like an iron vise, the pressure so intense I half-expected to hear something crack in the next second. But I didn't cry out. Didn't struggle, either.

I just looked at him.

Looked at this face. This face I'd stolen glances at during countless late nights. When he was asleep, when I thought he wouldn't notice me, when I still believed I was in love with him.

Back then, I thought he was safe.

Now I understood—safety had only existed because he hadn't lost control yet.

"Liam." My voice came out so soft I could barely hear it myself. "You're hurting me."

His hand went rigid for an instant.

Just that one instant. I yanked my wrist free with all my strength.

He probably hadn't expected me to do that—or rather, he hadn't expected himself to actually let go. His expression froze, that manic tension cracking just slightly.

I stepped back twice, putting distance between us. Rubbing my wrist, I could already see the red ring forming on my skin, soon to turn purple and blue.

"What was it you just said?" I looked at him. "You're going to tie me up and drag me back?"

Liam's chest heaved violently. He opened his mouth as if to speak, then swallowed the words back down.

Something shifted in those eyes. The madness receded somewhat, replaced by a kind of bewilderment. Like someone waking from a high fever to discover they'd done something irreversible.

"Elise, I—"

"Do you know what you look like right now?" I didn't give him a chance to explain. "Like my uncle."

When those words landed, I saw his pupils contract.

"Benjamin." I spoke the name, my voice so cold it surprised even me. "Every time he couldn't control himself, it was like this. Grabbing my wrist. Gripping my chin. Using violence to force my compliance."

Liam's face turned deathly pale.

"You think you're doing what, exactly? Winning me back? Proving how much you care about me?" I let out a laugh, but there was no warmth in it whatsoever. "You're just doing exactly the same thing he did. Using violence. Using threats. Using the privilege of being a Sterling heir to force someone weaker than you into submission."

"That's not—" He took a step forward.

"Don't come closer."

I stepped back again, simultaneously picking up the suitcase that had fallen to the ground. The handle was bent slightly, but still functional.

"You came to my parents' funeral five years ago," I said.

Liam's footsteps stopped.

"You came with Edwin Sterling. During the entire funeral, you were the only person who walked up to me and said 'my condolences.' You even gave me a handkerchief. White. Embroidered with the Sterling family crest."

I remembered it too clearly. It had rained hard that day. Everyone stood before the headstone with black umbrellas, not one of them sparing me a glance—a thirteen-year-old orphan who'd just lost her parents, wearing an ill-fitting black dress, standing at the very edge of the crowd like a forgotten piece of baggage.

Only Liam had approached. Only him.

"You know what?" My throat tightened, but I didn't care. "Because of that handkerchief, because of those words 'my condolences,' I lied to myself for five whole years."

"Elise..."

"Every time you pushed me toward someone else, I told myself it was fine. Every time you knew that woman would humiliate me and did nothing, I told myself you had your reasons. Every time you brought me to those dinners and let your mother publicly shame me, I told myself at least he still brings me home."

My voice began to shake. Not from fear. From anger. A rage that had been accumulating for five years, buried at the very bottom, that I thought had long since died out but was now burning with full force.

"I could have accepted your engagement to Isabella. I could have accepted being a nameless mistress forever. I could have accepted you treating me like a display piece, a possession, a toy for your amusement."

I stepped backward with each sentence, one step at a time.

"But you chose to humiliate me to give your family an explanation. Watched me being degraded in that SM room. Watched me being judged like a beggar in front of your mother. And now—"

I glanced at the hand he'd thrown to the ground.

"Now you're trying to use force to take me away."

Silence.

At some point, everyone around us had disappeared. Probably scared off by the commotion. The empty space in front of the dormitory building held only the two of us and a suitcase tipped on its side.

"I don't have anything left to lose."

As I spoke those words, a strange sense of lightness filled my chest.

Benjamin had torn everything open at the school gates today. My photos, my past, my most shameful secrets—all laid bare in the sunlight. The whole school knew. The whole internet was spreading it.

What did I have left to fear?

"Liam Sterling, listen carefully."

I looked directly into his eyes. This time I didn't look away, didn't lower my head, didn't show any sign of weakness.

"No matter what you do, no matter what you say, no matter what methods you use—I will never go back to you. Not because I've fallen in love with someone else. Not because you've done something unforgivable."

I picked up my suitcase and turned toward the school gates.

"It's because I've finally seen you for what you are. And I never want to have anything to do with that kind of person ever again."

The footsteps behind me didn't follow.

I walked a long way without hearing them.

He didn't chase after me.

Maybe he'd finally realized. Maybe he'd finally understood that some things, once shattered, stay shattered—no amount of force could piece them back together.

I walked out through the school gates, reached the roadside. The sunlight was blinding. The air carried the smell of car exhaust and dust. In the distance, people pointed in my direction, some raising their phones.

Whatever.

I didn't care anymore.

My phone vibrated in my pocket.

I pulled it out and glanced at the screen.

Julian Vance.