Chapter 2
He laughed. “I’m not afraid of dying. Why would I be afraid of prison?”
She stared at him, bewildered. “What… what are you talking about?”
He just kept smiling at her.
She began to tremble. “Mr. Ashford… you’re not serious…”
16:07
He pressed a dagger under her chin. “Why would I lie? After I’m done with you, I’m going straight to my wife’s grave to join her.”
Sienna saw the madness in his eyes and knew, with chilling certainty, that he wasn’t joking. She started to scream. But the basement was soundproof; no one would hear.
Damian walked out, leaving the dozen men inside, and closed the door.
A day later, Sienna was barely breathing.
He thought, It’s time.
He went to Elara’s grave. He wiped the headstone again and again, the polished stone reflecting his broken face. He tried to find excuses, justifications for his actions, but they all crumbled into dust.
He’d wanted justice for his sister, but did that give him the right to torture his wife? To use such debased,
cruel methods to break her?
And the most important question, the one that would haunt him for eternity: when she changed so drastical- ly overnight, why hadn’t his first instinct been to ask her what was wrong? Why hadn’t he tried to find out what she’d endured? Why was his only response to hurt her, to push her, to punish her until there was nothing
left?
They had come so far together, from school uniforms to wedding vows. And in the end, he had been the one to force them both down a road to ruin.
He collapsed in front of Elara’s tombstone, his tears soaking the earth beneath him.
He didn’t know what he would say when he saw his wife and his sister on the other side.
He would have to start with an apology.
He thought that, and then, he closed his eyes for the last time.
