“What did you just say?”
Nathaniel’s voice was low, dangerous.
But for the first time, I felt nothing at all.
Not fear.
Not love.
Not hope.
Only exhaustion.
“I said I want a divorce.”
Seraphina let out a tiny gasp and clutched Nathaniel’s sleeve as if I had struck her.
“Ava,” she whispered, “please don’t say that because of me. I know you hate me, but I never wanted to come between you two.”
Marcus frowned at me. Julian had appeared somewhere behind them, silent as a shadow, watching everything with unreadable eyes.
I almost laughed.
How many times had I seen this scene?
How many times had she stood there looking fragile while I looked unstable?
Nathaniel stepped toward me. “You’re doing this again. Throwing a tantrum the second things don’t go your way.”
“I said I’ll sign,” I replied. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”
He stopped.
For the first time all day, uncertainty flickered across his face.
Maybe because I wasn’t screaming.
Maybe because I wasn’t begging.
Maybe because I looked exactly like what I was—a woman whose soul had finally burned all the way through.
Seraphina recovered first.
She took a step toward me and spoke softly, sweetly, like we were sisters in some normal family.
“If it makes you feel better, I can move out for a while.”
I stared at her.
She wore a cream-colored dress and a maternal glow, one hand resting over the slight curve of her stomach.
I looked at that hand and remembered the floor rushing up to meet me. Remembered the blood. Remembered waking up empty.
“No need,” I said. “You’ve already taken what you wanted.”
Her eyes shimmered with tears at once. “Marcus, Julian… did you hear that? She still thinks I stole everything from her.”
Julian’s gaze sharpened. “You should stop.”
His voice used to calm me.
Now it made my skin crawl.
I turned to him slowly. “You too?”
A strange tension pulled at his face, but it was gone in a second.
“You were never like this before,” he said. “If you’d just accept Seraphina, none of this would have happened.”
I repeated his words in disbelief. “None of this would have happened?”
My laugh came out thin and cracked.
“You sold me into hell.”
Marcus’s jaw tightened. “Watch your mouth.”
Nathaniel’s expression hardened. “And there it is. More lies.”
I looked from one face to the next.
The husband I had saved.
The brother who had raised me.
The boy I had rescued and given a future.
Every one of them was standing around the woman who destroyed me, protecting her like she was something holy.
And every one of them believed I was the villain.
The countdown dipped lower.
06:18:45.
Good.
Let it move.
Let it end.
“I’m tired,” I said quietly. “If you want me gone, then let me go.”
Nathaniel’s eyes narrowed. “You think threatening divorce will make me pity you?”
I shook my head.
“No. I think nothing will.”
Something in the room shifted then. A strange silence. A pause none of them could explain.
Because they were waiting for me to break.
And I had already broken long ago.
There was simply nothing left for them to shatter.