Chapter Four: Hollow Stones and Broken Vows

ELARA

A few days passed—or bled—like they always did.

Each hour slipped beneath my skin like frost. The silence no longer frightened me; it had become a roommate, a reflection. The only language I spoke now was quiet: the hum of machines, the rustle of a nurse’s shoes, the occasional click of Damien’s tablet.

But inside?

Inside, I was screaming.

I still hadn’t seen my face. The doctors said the bandages could come off soon. I didn’t want them to. I wasn’t ready to look at the woman in the mirror, if she could even be called that anymore.

They told me I crushed into stone when I fell. That the rocks had shattered parts of my cheekbones, torn skin, fractured the cartilage of my nose, broken my ribs. That my voice box had been nearly crushed by the pressure of the fall and the impact of hitting water with such force. The sea hadn't saved me. It swallowed me and spit me out broken.

I didn’t understand why I lived.

Why Damien Rhys pulled me from the water when he could’ve walked away.

He should’ve left me. I should’ve died with Milo.

That thought haunted me more than anything.

And yet, here I was. Alive. Breathing. Hollow.

Each morning I woke up expecting to forget. Hoping, maybe. But the memory always returned. Sharper. Louder. More vicious. Milo’s laughter. His curls bouncing as he ran. Ethan’s calm cruelty. Sienna’s smug smirk. My son’s scream.

The sea.

Then black.

---

That afternoon, Damien walked into my room again.

He had a phone in his hand. He didn’t say anything, but the tension in his body made something shift in the air. I watched as he sat down and set the phone on the tray beside my untouched lunch.

He looked at me.

"You should see something," he said softly. "Only if you’re ready."

I tilted my head slowly, nodding once.

He tapped the screen. The video began to play.

It was Ethan.

He stood on the steps of a lavish villa. The same one we were at before he pushed me off. Reporters surrounded him. Cameras flashed. He wore black, a dark shirt unbuttoned at the collar. He looked…devastated. Hollow. Almost believable.

Almost.

"My wife is missing," he said, voice cracking in the video. "And my son, he was found… gone."

He choked on the words. A tear slid down his cheek.

I froze.

Not because of the performance. But because he was so good at it.

There was no mention of the cliff. No mention of Sienna. No trace of the truth.

"We were on vacation. It was supposed to be a family trip. I don’t know what happened. One minute we were laughing, the next—" he broke off.

The camera zoomed in on his face. The grief looked real.

Damien pressed pause.

I hadn’t realized I was shaking.

"He’s been giving interviews," Damien said. "Wielding sympathy. Claiming you slipped. That he dove after you, but the tide was too strong. That he couldn’t save either of you."

He turned to me.

"The world sees him as a grieving father and heartbroken husband."

I clenched my fists. My nails dug into my palms, but I didn’t stop. I wanted to feel the pain. I needed it. It kept me from screaming.

Damien’s voice dropped. "He buried Milo two days after the incident. Quietly. No press. No family. Just a closed casket and a quick stone. And he flew back to America the next day."

I didn’t move.

"I know it’s soon," he said. "But if you want to see—"

He didn’t finish the sentence.

Because I was already reaching for the notepad.

My hand trembled as I wrote: Take me.

He raised a brow.

I pressed the pen again. Where they buried my son.

The letters were jagged. Shaky. Smeared with grief that refused to fade.

He didn’t try to dissuade me. Didn’t offer empty words or stitched sympathy.

He simply nodded.

---

The drive was quiet.

Naples passed in a blur. The streets were lined with vespas, locals chatting over espresso, tourists clutching guidebooks and gelato. Life moved on. Loud and unaware.

But I wasn’t part of it anymore.

I sat in Damien’s black car, wrapped in a scarf and oversized sunglasses. My limbs still ached. My lungs burned with every breath. My body was a tomb, and I carried death inside me.

The cemetery was tucked into a hill overlooking a small coastal village. It was modest. Old. Quiet. The wind whispered through the olive trees. The air smelled of stone and salt and something sacred.

I didn’t speak. I couldn’t. But Damien walked beside me like silence was language enough.

We stopped in front of a simple gray stone.

Milo Cade.

Three years.

Three beautiful, wild, irreplaceable years.

I fell to my knees. My legs buckled like they’d been waiting to give out. The cold bit through the fabric of my clothes. I pressed my palm to the earth, hoping—aching—to feel something. A trace. A warmth. A goodbye.

Nothing.

Then the tears came.

Hot. Furious. Not graceful like in movies. It was ugly, messy and violent.

They spilled over the wounds still bleeding inside me. They poured from a place words could never reach.

My throat convulsed. And then, a sound escaped me.

Not quite a cry.

Not quite a scream.

A guttural, wounded gasp. It scraped its way out, leaving blood behind. It seared my throat. It ripped through me like a soul trying to crawl out.

I couldn’t stop.

I didn’t want to.

Damien stood behind me, unmoving. Like a statue made of stone and shadow. He didn’t reach for me. Didn’t speak.

He let me break.

He let me burn.

And I did.

I sobbed until the world blurred. Until my hands trembled. Until I couldn’t breathe.

When it was over—when there was nothing left but the hollow ache—I placed both palms on the cold stone. I leaned my forehead against it, whispering words that never reached the air.

I made a vow.

Not loud. Not with words.

But real.

I will make them pay.

I promise you, Milo. I will make them bleed for what they did to you.

For what they did to me.

I stayed there until the sun dipped low.

Until the cold crept into my bones.

And then Damien helped me to my feet.

I didn’t look back.

I didn’t need to.

My son was gone.

But what Ethan and Sienna buried wasn’t a grieving widow.

They buried a mother.

They left behind something else entirely.