Once he was gone, I let myself breathe. Then I got up and started moving.
The tracker. The money. The plan. I had to keep going. I had to stay ahead.
I’d already started selling everything he ever gave me. Jewelry. Cars. The yacht. All of it was converted into clean money, stashed in offshore accounts under new names.
I still had Aziel to protect. He was the only reason I hadn’t burned this entire place to the ground already.
---
That night, I dragged a steel barrel into the back of the estate. Photos. Gifts. The leather jackets he had made for us with our initials stitched inside. The love notes. Hundreds of them.
Then came the black journal.
His obsession in print.
He wrote down everything about me. What time I woke up. What tea I drank. The way I tied my hair when I was stressed. What kind of music calmed me down after nightmares. He knew every part of me.
He loved me like a project. Like a blueprint. Not a person. I tossed the journal in and lit a match.
I watched the fire grow.
It swallowed everything.
The letters. The fabric. The photos. His twisted version of love. I stood there in the dark, smoke curling into the night air, heat brushing against my face.
One tear fell. Just one.