Chapter 72 Darkness II
Heaven’s half-broken phone lit up again.
Another message.
Another wound.
But she didn’t move.
Didn’t breathe properly.
She curled herself tighter, her spine pressed to the headboard, blanket clutched in white-knuckled fists. Her entire body trembled like a leaf trapped in storm winds.
The door flew open so violently the walls shuddered.
Heaven jerked upright with a gasp.
Maverick entered like a man made of thunder and knives,jaw clenched, shoulders tight, the veins in his neck standing like ropes, his hands balled into fists that trembled with fury.
Heaven felt his anger before she even saw him.
“M…Maverick…”
Her voice cracked against the silence.
“I didn’t push her…”
His laugh sliced her.
A sharp, hollow sound without mercy.
“You never do anything,” he said coldly. “Yet I keep seeing you do them.”
Her chest squeezed painfully, disbelief stabbing through her.
“If you were so desperate to push her,” he continued, stepping closer, voice like a crack of thunder, “you should’ve done it where I could clean up your mess. Not in front of the entire damn cruise.”
She flinched like he had struck her.
“But I didn’t…” Heaven whispered, tears spilling. “She… she pushed herself…”
“And why,” Maverick snarled, “would she do that?”
Her lips parted.
No sound came out.
Should she tell him Eva knew?
Should she mention the video?
The threat?
The blackmail?
No.
One leak, one whisper, and everything would burn.
Eva had said the words like a curse:
Mother will die.
His career will end.
Your family will pay back 500 million.
Heaven swallowed her terror back down and stayed silent.
Maverick’s disappointment twisted into something darker.
He turned abruptly and snatched her phone.
Heaven’s heart dropped to her stomach.
“What… what are you doing?” she whispered.
He read the message.
His face transformed.
A shadow passing over a storm.
His voice dropped, icy and lethal.
“Is this why you pushed her?”
Heaven blinked in confusion. “What…?”
“Because she caught you texting your servant boyfriend!”
He slammed the phone so hard it shattered against the floor, scattering glass across the room.
Heaven jerked back, a sob ripping from her throat.
Her mind spun.
Servant…?
Boyfriend…?
What lies had Eva fed him?
“I..don’t..understand…” Heaven gasped. “What servant boyfriend? Maverick..”
“Don’t fucking act dumb with me.”
His voice boomed through her, ripping her from the inside.
“Every time..every time…I try to give you a benefit of doubt, you find a new way to ruin it!”
He grabbed the headlamp from the table and hurled it against the wall.
It exploded into pieces.
Heaven cried out, covering her ears.
“S-stop…please…I’m sorry..Maverick, please..”
She apologized just to make him stop.
Even though she hadn’t done anything he accused her of.
She trembled uncontrollably.
The lights in the room flickered.
Heaven froze.
Her pupils dilated in raw fear.
Please God no. Not this. Not the dark.
Maverick’s expression sharpened when he saw the terror.
Maverick’s breath turned harsh with Controlled rage and Wounded pride.
A man being eaten alive by jealousy and betrayal.
“If I touch you right now,” he whispered darkly, “I will hurt you. And hurting you is the same as hurting myself.”
Her tears fell faster.
Her stomach twisted.
He stepped closer, towering over her.
“The last punishment clearly wasn’t enough. Maybe…”
His gaze drifted to the bulbs.
“…this one will be.”
Heaven’s eyes widened.
“Maverick...don’t...please...please..”
He smashed another lamp.
The entire room dimmed suddenly.
Heaven wailed and stumbled backward, trembling violently, palms sweating, chest constricting as the shadows grew longer..thicker…darker.
“Please don’t do this to me,” Heaven sobbed. “Please...I’m scared..please...”
He didn’t listen.
He ripped the last light from its socket.
The room plunged halfway into shadow.
Her breath hitched.
Her veins iced over.
The dark wasn’t just darkness to her.
It was a cage.
A memory.
A punishment burned into her childhood bones.
Her mother’s voice hissed in her skull…
“Get into that wardrobe. Stay there. Stay.”
Heaven gasped, choking on panic.
“Maverick...please!!” Heaven moved towards him hugging him and begging.
But he didn’t hear her.
Couldn’t hear her.
He ripped away from her grip and shattered the remaining lights around the suite and dragged her toward the closet.
“You will reflect,” he said, voice cold enough to kill.
“In the dark. Until the only name left in your head… is mine.”
“No..NO..please—” she sobbed, hyperventilating now.
He shoved her into the closet.
He shattered the bulb inside.
Blackness swallowed her whole.
The door slammed.
Heaven’s scream tore through the suite.
“MAVERICK!!! PLEASE LET ME OUT—I DIDN'T LET ANYONE TOUCH ME…PLEASE—I CAN’T—PLEASE—I’M SORRY—I’M SORRY—DON’T—DON’T—DON’T—”
She banged on the door until her palms bruised.
Her breath came in ragged bursts.
Her mind fractured.
Inside the darkness, old voices whispered—
“You let your sister fall.
This is your fault.
Stay there.
Stay in the dark.”
Heaven collapsed, clutching her head, rocking back and forth.
Outside the door, Maverick froze.
Her screams cut through him like knife.
he clenched his jaw and out his hand in a fist until it trembled.
“Fuck…”
He hissed under his breath, fury twisted with something else something raw and uncomfortable.
But he forced himself to turn away.
“She’s pretending,” he muttered.
“She’s lying.”
He walked out of her suite without looking back.
Even as her cries echoed behind him like a soul cracking open.
The resort’s club bar pulsed with heavy bass, neon lights cutting through the haze like electric veins loud, alive, drowning out everything Heaven was suffocating in back in that locked room.
Maverick sat at the bar like a storm dropped into human form, elbows tense, jaw ticking, rage simmering hot beneath his skin.
He lifted two fingers.
“Whiskey. Neat. Don’t stop pouring.”
The glass hit the counter.
He threw it back in one vicious swallow, like he wanted the burn to hurt.
She wanted another man.She made a fool of him.
And keeps lying.
Each thought carved into him deeper than the alcohol ever could.
He didn’t want to see her tears or hear her voice begging. Neither did he want to remember the way she clung to him like he was her entire world.
He didn’t want to feel anything.
But he did and that made him more angry.
A body bumped into him soft, clumsy.
A girl. Barely twenty. Glitter on her cheekbones, dress too short, laugh too loud. She grabbed his arm, leaning in with tipsy boldness.
“Oh my God… you’re him!” she slurred. “The guy from the cruise. Don’t…don’t believe her. That bitch is lying. I saw it… the argument…”