Chapter Three

Isabella’s POV

Eventually, I left the motel and returned home—though it didn’t feel like home anymore.

I had been home for days. Alone.

The kind of alone that gnawed at the bones, that made silence feel like a scream.

Since walking out of Damon’s office, I hadn’t spoken to anyone. Not Mia. Not even the woman in the mirror. The divorce papers were signed. The ring I once wore so proudly was tucked away—like a wound I wasn’t ready to look at. I had severed the final thread, the one tying me to a life I thought would be mine forever.

And still, I felt anything but free.

The silence in the house was cruel. Not peaceful. Not healing. It mocked me with every creak of the floorboard, every drip from the leaky faucet in the kitchen. Every sound was a memory clawing its way back. The walls whispered his name. The couch still held the shape of us—curled together during movie nights that ended in laughter and kisses. Now, it just held me. Hollow.

I sat on the edge of that same couch, clinging to a throw pillow like it was the only thing anchoring me to this world. My fingers clenched the fabric so tightly I thought it might rip. My eyes darted to the photo album on the shelf. I hadn’t touched it since everything crumbled, but something in me—a desperate ache—reached for it.

I opened it.

And there we were.

Damon and I are at the beach. Sand in our hair. His arm was around me. That damn smile of his—the one that could melt glaciers and make promises without words. I flipped another page. Our first Christmas together. His eyes twinkled as he lifted me to put the star on the tree. My laughter was frozen forever in that frame.

My breath caught in my throat.

Then came the memories—uninvited, merciless.

I could still feel his hands on my skin. Rough from work, but always tender with me. Damon had touched me like I was something sacred. Like he was trying to memorize every inch of me. Every kiss we shared felt like a vow. Every whisper is a piece of forever.

“You’re safe with me, Bella,” he said one night, fingers tracing idle circles on my back after we made love. “I’ll never let anything hurt you.”

And I had believed him.

I had given him everything—my body, my trust, my broken pieces. He said he’d hold them together. That I didn’t have to be strong all the time. That I was home.

But forever, it seemed, had a deadline.

And it came the moment she returned.

Kiara. The ghost from his past. The woman whose name once meant nothing to me… until it meant everything.

She walked back into his life like she’d never left, and I watched him fall all over again—right in front of me. Her presence poisoned the air between us, made me question every kiss, every “I love you,” every promise Damon ever made.

Had he been waiting for her return all along?

Was I just a placeholder until his true love came back?

The pain swelled so suddenly that I could barely breathe. I pressed a hand to my chest, as though I could hold the shards of my heart together.

And then my phone buzzed.

I flinched, dragging myself out of the memory. The screen lit up with a message.

Damon.

My breath hitched.

Against every instinct of self-preservation, I opened it.

“I need you to leave the house. She’s moving in.”There it was. The final blow.

I stared at the message, the words digging into me like blades.

She’s moving in.

She wasn’t just back. She was replacing me. Taking over the space I bled in. The space I built. Our space.

It was a knife to the chest. And Damon wielded it without hesitation.

My hand trembled. My vision blurred with unshed tears. I stumbled to my feet, pacing the room as the weight of it all pressed down on me.

He didn’t ask if I was okay. He didn’t care if I had somewhere to go. Just… leave. Like I was an unwanted guest overstaying my welcome.

Was I ever really his home? Or just a chapter he was always planning to close?

I found myself staring at the mantel again. Our wedding photo had been taken down days ago, but I still saw the outline where the frame had rested. An empty rectangle on the wall—how poetic.

My phone buzzed again.

A call this time. Unknown number.

I froze, heart thudding violently in my chest.

Was it him?

Or her?

Was this just another slap I wasn’t ready for?

The ringtone echoed through the house, and I hesitated. Everything inside me screamed to let it ring out. To let whoever it was disappear into the silence. But a deeper part—one soaked in grief and stubborn hope—picked it up.

“Hello?” My voice was hoarse.

There was a pause.

Then a voice—a woman’s. Calm. Familiar. Sharp enough to cut through bone.

“Isabella, why did you run away from home again? You know you shouldn’t have done that.”

I froze.

My grip tightened on the phone. My knees buckled, and I sank onto the floor.

“I—who is this?” I whispered.

But the voice didn’t answer.

Instead, it hummed a lullaby. One I couldn’t place. Yet it stirred something deep within me—a sensation like I had heard it before, in another life. A shiver crawled down my spine.

And then the line went dead.

I stared at the phone like it had morphed into something alien. My chest heaved, and my skin broke out in goosebumps. That voice… it wasn’t random. It was directed. Intimate.

And it wasn’t just a reminder.

It was a riddle I suddenly needed to solve.

I stood slowly, knees trembling. Everything in me screamed to pack a bag and get out before Damon and Kiara erased the last of me. But another part—small, flickering, dangerous—whispered that this wasn’t just about heartbreak anymore.

Something was wrong.

Wrong.

And I had no idea what was coming next.

But I knew this—whatever I thought I knew about Damon, about myself, about my past… it was only the surface.

And the echo after goodbye?

It was just beginning.