Chapter 143 Every Single Time
Elena : POV
Hours had passed. I didn't know how many. Time had lost all meaning.
I sat in the hospital cafeteria. Stared at a cup of coffee I hadn't touched. Watched it go cold.
People came and went around me. Doctors. Nurses. Families. They talked and laughed and cried and I couldn't understand how the world was still turning. How everyone was just going about their lives like nothing had happened.
Like my mom wasn't dead.
Like I hadn't failed her.
My phone buzzed. A text from Julian.
[Landing in 20 minutes. Please stay there. Please.]
I didn't respond.
Another text.
[I didn't do this. I swear to God, I didn't do this. Let me prove it to you.]
I deleted it.
I didn't want to hear his lies. Didn't want to listen to him make excuses.
But I didn't leave. I just sat there. Staring at nothing.
Waiting.
For what, I didn't know.
---
Footsteps. Running footsteps.
I looked up from my cold coffee.
Julian.
He was still wearing his suit from the Singapore meeting. Wrinkled. Tie loose. Hair disheveled like he had been running his hands through it. His eyes found mine across the cafeteria and something in his expression cracked.
Relief. Desperation. Fear.
I felt nothing but cold, burning hate.
He crossed the distance between us in seconds. Reached for me. "Elena—"
I stood up. Stepped back. "Don't touch me."
My voice came out flat. Dead.
He froze. His hands hung in the air between us. "I came as soon as I could. I—" He looked at me. Really looked at me. At the blood on my hands. My face. "God, Elena. I'm so sorry. I know how much she meant to you."
"Do you?" I laughed. It was a horrible sound. "Do you really?"
"Yes." His voice was raw. "I do. Josephine was—she was a good person. She didn't deserve this."
"She said your name."
He flinched. "Elena, I didn't—"
"Before she died." I took another step back. Put more distance between us. I needed distance. Needed air. Needed to not be close enough to smell his cologne and remember what it had felt like to love him. "She woke up. And she said your name, Julian."
Something flickered across his face. Shock. Confusion. "I don't understand—"
“She woke up, Julian.” My hands clenched into fists. “Right before she died. In front of me and the nurses, she said your name.”
Right after I had left.
If I had been there—
If I hadn't left—
No. I couldn't think about that now. Couldn't let the guilt swallow me whole.
This was his fault. Not mine. His.
"No." The word came out sharp. Definitive. "No, Elena, I didn't—I would never—"
"Wouldn't you?"
The question hung in the air between us. Heavy. Poisonous.
His jaw clenched. "You can't possibly think I had anything to do with this."
I looked at him. Really looked at him. At the man I had loved for sixteen years. The man I had married. The man who had locked me in a house and told me it was for my own good.
I remembered those days. The endless, suffocating days when the walls had closed in and the silence had pressed down on me like a weight. When I had stopped eating. Stopped sleeping. Just sat by the window and stared at nothing.
When I had stood on the balcony and looked down and thought: It would be so easy.
"You hurt everyone," I heard myself say. My voice sounded far away. Like it belonged to someone else. "You hurt me. You hurt our baby. Why not her?"
"Elena, I swear to God, I didn't do this." His voice was rising now. Getting desperate. "I was in Singapore. I've been in meetings for the past eighteen hours. I didn't even know she was in the hospital until you called me."
"You always have an alibi." My laugh was brittle. Broken. "You always have an excuse. It's never you, is it? It's always someone else."
"Because it is someone else!" He pulled out his phone. His hands were shaking. "I'll prove it to you. I'll—" He jabbed at the screen. Pressed the phone to his ear.
I watched him. Detached. Like I was watching a play.
If I had been there...
If I hadn't left...
She would still be alive.
The guilt crashed over me again. A wave so powerful it nearly brought me to my knees.
I had left her. I had left her alone and she died.
I was the one who had killed her.
Not Julian. Me.
No. No, that wasn't right. The nurse had said someone had tampered with the pump. Someone had come into the room. Someone had—
Someone I could have stopped if I had been there.
"Adrian." Julian's voice cut through my spiraling thoughts. "Victoria. Where is she? Tell me you have eyes on her."
My head snapped up.
Victoria.
There was a pause. Julian's expression darkened.
"What do you mean you don't know?" Another pause. Longer this time. His jaw clenched. "What about Whitmore? He was supposed to deliver her to—"
He stopped. Listened. His face went pale.
"They're both gone?" His voice dropped. Got dangerous. "How long?"
My hands were numb. I looked down at them. At the dried blood under my nails. Mom's blood.
I should have been there.
I should have protected her.
I had failed her.
"Two days?" Julian's voice cracked. "You're telling me Victoria and Whitmore have been missing for two fucking days and you're just telling me now?"
He listened. His hand gripped the phone so hard his knuckles turned white.
"Find them," he said. His voice was cold. Flat. "I don't care what it takes. Find them. Now."
He lowered the phone. Looked at me. His eyes were wild. Desperate.
"Victoria's missing," he said. "She and Dr. Whitmore disappeared two days ago. No one knows where they are. Elena, I think—I think she did this. I think she killed Josephine."
I stared at him. Processed the words.
Victoria missing.
Whitmore missing.
Mom dead.
It made sense. Logically, it made sense.
But I couldn't make myself believe it.
If I had been there, no one could have done it.
If I had stayed—
If I had just stayed—
"How convenient," I heard myself say. My voice was hollow. "Victoria disappears. And my mother dies. And you expect me to believe it's a coincidence?"
"It's not a coincidence. That's exactly my point—"
"You're lying," I said softly.
"I'm not—"
"You're always lying. About her. About us. About everything."
"Elena, please." He moved toward me. I backed away. He stopped. "I know how this looks. I know you don't trust me. But I swear on everything I have, I didn't hurt Josephine. I didn't even know she was—"
"You sent Victoria to a hospital." My voice was getting quieter. Flatter. "Not a prison. A hospital. You protected her. Even after everything she did to me. To our baby. You protected her."
"I didn't—" His hands clenched into fists. "I thought she'd be contained. I thought—"
"You thought wrong." I turned away from him. Looked toward the cafeteria windows. The city beyond. "You always think wrong when it comes to her."
And I had thought wrong when I left Mom alone.
We had both failed her.
But at least I had loved her.
What was his excuse?
"That's not fair."
"Fair?" The word tasted like ash. "You want to talk about fair? Our baby is dead because of her. And now my mother is dead. And you're standing here telling me it was Victoria. The woman you've been protecting for three years. The woman you chose over me. Every. Single. Time."