Chapter 66 Recognition

Chapter 66 Recognition
ANNA'S POV

"Shameless girl.”

The woman’s voice cut through the air, sharp and full of disgust. It was deep, commanding, and painfully familiar.

I turned my head, my eyes darting around in panic as I tried to locate where the voice was coming from. Everywhere looked distorted, like I was trapped behind a thick glass wall. Shapes blended together, faces were unclear, and the air itself felt heavy.

“How dare you embarrass my son in front of his colleagues?” the voice came again, louder this time. “Don’t you have any dignity?”

My heart dropped.

I knew that voice.

I knew it far too well.

I tried to step back, to say something, anything, but my body refused to respond. My limbs felt weighed down, as if I was sinking into the ground. I struggled, but the more I tried to move, the heavier I became.

Then I heard it.

A child crying.

The sound was faint at first, almost like an echo, but within seconds it grew louder, more desperate. The cry pierced straight through my chest, filling me with a sense of fear and grief I couldn’t explain.

My eyes flew open.

I jolted upright on the bed, my chest rising and falling rapidly as I sucked in air. My heart pounded so hard it felt like it was about to tear through my ribs. Even though I sat there silently, my entire body trembled.

My throat felt painfully dry.

I reached for the glass of water on the side table with shaky hands and gulped it down, barely stopping to breathe. The cold liquid slid down my throat, grounding me slightly. I drank until the glass was empty, then set it down slowly.

I lowered my gaze to the floor, forcing myself to breathe properly.

I knew it was a dream. From the moment everything became blurry, I knew it wasn’t real.

But that didn’t make it any less terrifying.

The voice I heard in my dream — no, in that nightmare belonged to James’s mother.

The day James betrayed me, she had said those exact words to me. Every single one of them. Her voice had been just as cold, just as cruel, and just as unforgiving. I remembered how shocked I was back then, how frozen I felt as she tore into me without hesitation.

And now, years later, that same voice had found its way back into my mind.

Everything always led back to James.

I thought these nightmares had stopped.

Back in Russia, two years after we moved there, the nightmares had started. At first, they came occasionally, but soon they turned into a nightly torment. Every single night, I relived the same tragedy. The same humiliation. The same pain.

I didn’t know how to make them stop.

I tried everything.

I saw therapists, more than one. Some listened quietly, others took notes, and a few tried to reassure me with calm voices and practiced smiles. They told me it was trauma. That it was because I was still emotionally wounded by what James had done to me. They said my heart hadn’t healed yet, and because of that, my mind kept replaying the event that broke me.

At that time, they were right.

I was broken.

I was scared.

I was hurt in ways I didn’t even know how to put into words. I couldn’t accept what had happened to me, and my brain punished me for it by turning my pain into nightmares.

But that was back then.

Eventually, with time and the help of my family in Russia, I learned how to accept my fate. I stopped asking myself why it happened and focused instead on surviving it. Slowly, the nightmares faded. Night after night, I slept peacefully again.

They stopped completely.

Until now.

Today, I had that same nightmare again.

And this time, it was worse.

This time, I heard the cry of a baby.

My hand moved to my stomach instinctively, my fingers pressing lightly against it. A strange wave of guilt washed over me, heavy and suffocating, as if the child I heard crying in my dream was the unborn child I lost.

The one that never got a chance to live.

For a brief moment, my chest tightened painfully.

But I had healed.

I was sure of it.

I wasn’t crying anymore. I wasn’t mourning what happened again. I had accepted it, made peace with it, and moved on with a clear purpose in mind. So why was my mind dragging me back there again?

Why now?

I let out a small sigh and lifted my hand to pinch my temples, trying to ease the dull ache forming in my head. My body still felt tired and stiff as I stretched slightly, rolling my shoulders and adjusting my position on the bed.

My eyes drifted to the clock on the wall.

5:00 a.m.

At least it was almost dawn.

I didn’t have to stay awake through the entire night. Back then, whenever I had these dreams, I always woke up in the middle of the night, and no matter how tired I was, sleep never came back. I would lie there staring at the ceiling until morning.

I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep again now either.

But strangely, I didn’t mind.

I reached for my phone on the bed, and the screen lit up instantly, buzzing nonstop in my hand. Notification after notification filled the screen.

Instagram messages.

So many of them.

I didn’t even need to open the app to know who they were from.

Ever since I followed him and sent that message on Instagram, James had been texting nonstop. Almost fifty messages in the last twelve hours alone. My phone felt heavier just holding it.

I stared at the screen for a long moment, my thumb hovering over it but not moving.

Then a thought crept into my mind, small at first, but impossible to ignore.

Was I having these dreams again because I was communicating with James again?

The question lingered in the air as I sat there in silence, the early morning light slowly creeping into the room.