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Chapter 53: Cruelty

Author: Claire Lemaire
last update Last Updated: 2025-06-21 06:47:56

Ethan’s detached, cool voice emanated from the doorway. I halted, back to him, fists clenched in the material I held. I swung around slowly.

Ethan leaned in the doorway, my former position mirrored in him. He was impeccably dressed in charcoal trousers and a crisp white shirt, sleeves rolled up his forearms. He held a steaming mug of coffee in his hand, no doubt made by her. His face was carefully expressionless, but his eyes, however, those dark, familiar eyes that had once softened with amusement, desire, now held only a guarded, icy calculation. He was waiting. For the screams, the tears, the pleading his cruelty anticipated.

Our eyes locked. The air was charged, thick with unspoken venom and a terrible, undeniable history. The silence grew, thick with the weight of everything that was shattered. I saw the faintest flicker of surprise in his eyes, surprise at my stillness, at the absence of the expected collapse. He shifted slightly, his knuckles whitening on the handle of the mug.
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