I didn’t want to die in that rotting basement. The debt was paid. It was time to leave.
I had just drifted off to sleep on the squeaky cot when I heard his voice again—sharp and disgusted.
“This? You dare show me this and ask me to ‘check it over’? The colors, the composition—everything’s a mess!”
“Regina, you did this on purpose, didn’t you? You think putting out garbage like this won’t ruin Margot’s reputation? All those techniques I worked so hard to teach you—what, did you feed them to the dogs?” he thundered.
Regina's POV
I don’t know why, but my eyes drifted to his ring finger.
There was a ring on it now—silver and gleaming, shining so brightly that even through my blurred vision, it stood out like a spotlight.
He glanced over the paintings and flatly said, “Only this one with the roses is halfway decent. The rest? Complete garbage.”
His silhouette moved between the canvases, growing fuzzier and harder to follow. Eventually, I just closed my eyes.
“Darell,” I said quietly, “I can’t paint anymore. Please… let me go.”
I wasn’t lying. Maybe the tumor had grown too fast, too wild, clouding my eyes, fogging up my brain.
I couldn’t see clearly. I couldn’t paint well anymore.