Ch3 - The Oath He Had No Right to Make

Half an hour later, Luna is sitting on the cold concrete steps of the precinct, the adrenaline finally crashing.

She is wrapped in a heavy, expensive wool coat that isn't hers—someone had draped it over her shoulders during the bureaucratic chaos, and she had pulled it tight without thinking.

Ethan emerges from the glass doors. He crosses the distance between them without hurrying, holding two steaming cups, and silently extends one toward her.

Hot chocolate.

She takes it, her numb fingers wrapping around the cardboard.

"The officers from earlier have been officially suspended," he states flatly. "The hotel manager was fired ten minutes ago."

She takes a slow sip. She says nothing.

"You shouldn't go back to that suite."

"I know." She grips the cup tighter. "My luggage is still in the lobby."

"I'll take you wherever you need to go."

She desperately wants to say no. She opens her mouth to reject him, to spit venom, but what comes out instead is a quiet, ragged exhale.

"Fine," she whispers.

She doesn't say anything until they're back in his car with her luggage in the trunk, pulling back out into the night.

"Do not have people track my movements. It disgusts me."

Ethan owns multiple properties across the city, yet he is staying in a hotel. In the suite right next to hers.

There is only one logical explanation. He knew exactly where she would be.

Ethan says nothing.

"You knew exactly which hotel I was at." She turns her head, glaring at his profile—that infuriatingly aristocratic jawline, the dominant way he handles the steering wheel.

"I was concerned—"

"Stop." Her voice cuts through the cabin, clean and deadly as a scalpel.

"You do not get the privilege of being concerned. You are Stella Vane's husband—oh, I suppose I should call her Stella Caldwell now. I have a partner who actually respects me. We ended four years ago." She shifts abruptly, facing the cold window. "Pull a stunt like tracking me again, and I will make sure you publicly regret it."

Silence descends, thick and heavy.

Then, "Luna."

"I am not interested in your excuses."

"I know." His voice is noticeably rougher now. "I know I lost the right to protect you. But I couldn't—" He swallows hard, a visible pulse jumping in his throat. "I couldn't stand the thought of you being in that room, cornered and alone, and not intervene."

"That is not your problem to solve anymore."

Her voice is absolute ice, stripped of every ounce of warmth it once held.

Every word tumbling from her lips is a calculated strike, designed to sever the invisible, suffocating tether still dragging between them. For Ethan, the profound coldness in her tone feels like a thousand serrated needles plunging directly into his chest.

"Are you deaf, Ethan, or just temporarily mute?" Luna snaps. "You certainly didn't waste any time having your security team track my every move. You found me fast enough, didn't you?"

The suffocating reality of his obsession presses heavily against the windows.

From the very beginning, Ethan had dictated every aspect of her existence, treating her with the overbearing reverence one might reserve for a priceless, fragile porcelain doll.

He had micromanaged her world to a stifling degree. Whenever they traveled, he barred her from stepping foot into anything he deemed 'unsafe'—eschewing even the most exclusive five-star hotels and luxury rentals. Instead, he purchased estates in whatever city they happened to visit, isolating her in golden cages of his own making.

When Ethan remains stubbornly silent, the heavy quiet only fans the flames of Luna's fury. She unleashes every venomous insult she has been hoarding in her mind, her words lashing out like a whip in the confined space.

Yet, Ethan stares blankly at the road ahead, absorbing the verbal assault as though his hearing has simply ceased to function.

"Drink some water, Luna. Your throat is going to bleed," Ethan murmurs.

"What is wrong with you, Ethan? Are you some kind of masochist?" she demands, her eyes blazing as she glares at his uncompromising profile. "Did you not hear a single word I just said?"

Instead of answering, Ethan calmly twists the cap off the bottle. He leans across the center console, bringing the rim of the cold bottle directly to her parted lips.

"Water," he commands softly, his dark eyes dropping to the curve of her mouth.

Her throat is, in fact, burning like dry sandpaper. Realizing that he is an immovable mountain, entirely impervious to her wrath, she aggressively snatches the bottle from his grip, her fingertips inadvertently brushing against the hot, rough skin of his knuckles.

"This never happens again," she mutters darkly after taking a long, desperate gulp.

"Okay," Ethan agrees instantly. A faint, almost imperceptible lightness briefly bleeds into his heavy tone. In his desperate, fractured state, simply hearing her speak to him—even if she is tearing him apart—is enough to momentarily scatter the suffocating storm clouds gathering in his mind.

Luna thrusts the half-empty bottle back toward his chest. "Why didn't you bring your precious wife to the concert tonight?"

The word 'wife' hangs in the air, dripping with corrosive acid.

"She has an impeccable pedigree, she's stunningly gorgeous, and she is absolutely devoted to you. Your married life must be nothing short of a fairytale," Luna taunts, injecting a lethal dose of sarcasm into every single syllable.

She needs him to hurt. She needs him to bleed the way she is bleeding.

"Actually, I'm genuinely curious," she pushes, her voice dropping to a vicious, mocking whisper. "Was that little drug really that potent? Was it truly powerful enough to make you look at her and see my face?"

Luna tilts her head. "Or maybe...maybe when a woman that incredibly beautiful strips naked and willingly slides into your bed, it doesn't actually matter who she is, does it?"

Screech—

Ethan slams his foot on the brake pedal with brutal force, throwing the vehicle toward the curb in a violent emergency stop.

The sudden deceleration sends Luna violently pitching forward, her breath catching in her throat. But before the seatbelt can even engage, Ethan's heavy, muscular forearm shoots across her chest, slamming into the seat back to shield her.

"Are you insane, Ethan?!" Luna gasps, her heart hammering violently against her ribs in a frantic, terrified rhythm.

Ethan doesn't pull away. He stays trapped in her space, hovering inches from her face. The muscles in his hard, ruthlessly handsome jaw are pulled terrifyingly taut, his lips pressed into a bloodless, severe line. There is a terrifying, lethal sincerity burning in his gaze as he stares down at her.

"Luna," he says, his voice dangerously low. "If I am lying to you about that night, may I die a violent, agonizing death."

The vow is spoken with a quiet, lethal softness, yet it lands between them with the crushing weight of a collapsing building.

The sheer desperation and unyielding finality burning in his dark eyes causes Luna's heart to stutter painfully in her chest.

A sickening wave of nausea rolls through her because she knows he isn't lying. She knows he would rather tear out his own heart than willingly betray her.

But why, why did he have to be so careless? Why did he let his guard down long enough to be drugged and manipulated by that family?

If he had just been a fraction more careful, their world wouldn't have been violently ripped apart. And their innocent baby—the tiny, flickering heartbeat she had seen on the ultrasound screen—wouldn't have been mercilessly ripped from her body.

Luna forces herself to erect the icy barricades around her shattered heart once more, refusing to let the tears stinging her eyes fall.

"You don't need to make toxic, melodramatic vows to me anymore," she whispers. "The reality is that you are Stella's husband now. That is the only fact that matters."