Ella's hand hovered over the velvet box. Her breath caught. For a moment, she forgot how to breathe, forgot how to think.
The necklace glinted under the hallway light—silver, delicate, still stained with the salt of the sea.
She clenched her jaw and looked up.
Leon stood in front of her, shoulders tense, chest rising and falling with quiet restraint.
He didn't speak.
He waited.
Like he always had… in the beginning.
Before obsession.
Before madness.
Before chains.
Ella's heart was a battlefield—scarred, smoldering, soaked in years of love twisted into ruin.
Why couldn't he stay the monster she needed him to be?
Why couldn't he scream, demand, force—do something she could hate again?
But this version of him—the quiet, broken, relentless version—was worse.
Because he made her feel like maybe he could change.
And that kind of hope?
Was lethal.
Her emotions were like a dam—cracked and trembling. Every word he said was another drop pressing against its fragile surface.
And now, standing in front of him with that cursed necklace in her palm…
She finally shattered.
The tears she refused to shed began to fall—slow, hot, silent.
"I threw this away because I never wanted to see your face again," she whispered. "Why do you keep showing up?"
Leon's lips parted. His voice—when it came—was cracked, fraying at the edges.
"Because every time I close my eyes," he said, "I hear you crying… and I don't know why."
She stepped forward, inches from his face.
"Then let me tell you."
She grabbed his hand, pressed it to her chest.
"You made this break."
"You said love. But all I got was a cage."
Leon's entire body trembled. His voice came out like a plea.
"Am I… a monster?"
She stared into his eyes.
And the silence between them felt like a scream.