CHAPTER 3

VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED. ADULTS 18+ ONLY

The tires screeched against the pavement as I swerved around the corner, my hands still trembling on the steering wheel and the sting from the cuts on my palm pulsed with every turn but I couldn’t stop. I didn’t care. I just needed to get there—to the Verene mansion, to my parents. For the truth. Something. Anything that would make sense of this nightmare.

Halfway down the road, the sky cracked open. Rain poured in thick sheets, blurring the windshield, pounding on the roof like war drums. Of course. As if the world wasn’t cruel enough already.

The wipers groaned against the glass, struggling to keep up. I could barely see the road signs. My heart pounded with every passing second. I hated driving in storms, always had. Victor used to do it for me—back when he pretended to care. But today, I was alone.

And then, as if mocking my desperation, the engine sputtered.

“No, no, no—don’t do this to me,” I hissed, slamming my palm against the steering wheel then died right in the middle of the side road.

I sat there for a moment in stunned silence, the rain hammering around me, breath fogging the window.

Tears welled up. I clenched my teeth and shoved the door open.

“Shit!” I murmured to myself while holding my forehead out of frustration.

Water soaked through my sandals as I stepped into the downpour. I didn’t care. I grabbed my bag, slammed the door shut, and started walking. The Verene estate wasn’t far now—just two turns and a long stretch of gravel. I’d walked it before as a teenager and I could walk it again.

Mud splashed up my legs. My clothes clung to my skin. I couldn’t even tell if the wetness on my face was from the rain or my tears anymore. Maybe both.

Probably both.

By the time I reached the tall iron gates of the estate, I was shivering, soaked through and barely able to feel my fingers but I had made it then the gates groaned open slowly, mechanically, like they, too, didn’t want to see me.

The estate loomed ahead—elegant, ancestral and cruel. The lights inside were warm. Inviting. Deceiving.

As I made my way up the steps, each one heavier than the last. Something in my gut twisted as I reached the door. I heard voices—low, breathless, muffled through the walls.

Then a sound I hadn't heard in years.

I hadn’t meant to stop.

My legs had just… refused to move. Maybe a part of me still hoped—prayed—that it wasn’t what it looked like. That I was wrong.

But the soft gasp that floated through the open door proved me right.

I crept closer, the world narrowing down to the thin crack in the doorway and the sharp, uneven rhythm of two bodies breathing in sync.

Naomi lay back against her bed, her silky robe slipped halfway down her arms, revealing smooth skin glistening in the low amber light. Her chest rose and fell in uneven waves, lips parted, cheeks flushed with heat and satisfaction.

Victor knelt at the edge of the bed, hands trailing up her thighs with reverence, as if he were touching something sacred. His eyes were dark—so dark—with hunger, and worse… affection. The kind I had begged for. Starved for.

He murmured something low into her skin, something I couldn’t hear, but it made Naomi arch her back and laugh softly—that laugh. The one she used when she knew she had won.

“Damn… you’re still tight,” Victor groaned against her skin, voice thick with hunger.

Naomi arched beneath him with her fingers threading through his hair with slow purpose. She guided his head lower, deliberate and possessive until his mouth was nestled between her thighs—kissing, licking, claiming the most vulnerable part of her like it belonged to him. Like she belonged to him. And him, to her.

She moaned—loudly, theatrically—her voice dripping with mockery as if she wanted someone to hear. As if she wanted me to hear.

“V-Victor…” she gasped, hips rolling against his face, “I think I’m cumming—hurry…”

I felt like I couldn’t breathe because he used to kiss me like that but never with that kind of worship. Never with that kind of devotion that made a woman unravel like she was the only one in the world. With me, it had been affection. Warm, yes. Gentle, even. But not like this. Not primal. Not consuming.

Naomi pulled him up by the collar, dragging his mouth away from her as if she couldn’t bear the distance and crashed her lips to his in a kiss that was slow and aching and cruel. Not lustful but intimate in the worst possible way. She clung to him like she had the right and Victor was now busy thrusting her in and out as if there’s no tomorrow.

They’re doing it intensely, intimately.

Victor’s hand slid up to cup her breast while his thumb brushing lazily over her nipple through the thin silk robe. With his other hand, he sank his fingers back inside her, deep and familiar and Naomi let out a shuddering moan that echoed against the walls, an echo that sliced through me like glass.

My tears fell silently. One by one. I didn’t wipe them.

It wasn’t just sex.

It was love.

The kind of love that devoured. The kind that made a man gentle and ruthless at once. Victor touched her like she was a memory he couldn’t forget, like he was retracing a map etched into his skin. Every movement said I know you. Every breath said I’ve been here before.

He held her like she was a secret he never wanted to share—his mouth trailing over her jaw, his hand slipping beneath the silk of her robe, memorizing every inch of her like he already had a thousand times… and couldn’t get enough.

And I watched.

Watched the man I once gave my everything to become someone else for another woman.

It wasn’t the sex that broke me.

It was the way he loved her.

And Naomi…

She wasn’t ashamed. She never even looked away.

Her eyes opened mid-kiss and locked onto mine, bold and gleaming. There was no panic and no guilt. Just a smirk curled into the corner of her lips, delicate and deadly.

She wanted me to see.

Victor still hadn’t noticed me standing there, trembling like a fool outside the door.

He whispered her name like a vow. She cupped his cheek like she’d waited her whole life for this moment. My husband and my sister tangled together in my family’s home. On her very bed.

The moan that escaped Naomi was soft and sinful, the kind of sound I used to dream of pulling from him. But that fantasy was never mine, was it?

He was never mine.

I stepped back, heart slamming against my ribs, and the wooden floor creaked beneath my heel.

Naomi blinked slowly and leaned in to whisper something in Victor’s ear.

His head turned.

And finally, he saw me.

His expression froze—lips still swollen from kissing her. Shirt halfway unbuttoned. Breathless.

Time stopped. Just for a moment.

But the damage was already done.