All Chapters of Scars of Love,Flames of Betrayal: Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

Chapter 72 Zara’s POV I don’t know how long I cried. Minutes? Hours? Time had lost all meaning.All I knew was the emptiness where Josh had been standing. The silence where his voice should have been. The cold air where his warmth used to fill the space.My sobs tore through the warehouse, raw and animalistic. I couldn’t stop them. Couldn’t control them. They came from somewhere so deep inside me that I didn’t even recognize the sounds as my own.Green held me on that cold concrete floor, her arms wrapped tight around my shaking body. She didn’t try to tell me everything would be okay. Didn’t offer empty platitudes. She just held me while I fell apart completely.My son kicked inside me, hard and insistent, as if trying to remind me he was still there. Still alive. Still depending on me. But even that couldn’t penetrate the fog of grief suffocating me.Josh was dead. Had been dead for three days. And I’d spent those three days hating him, pushing him away, refusing to listen to his

Chapter 74Zara’s POVWeeks passed in the same gray fog. Days and nights bleeding together into one continuous stream of nothingness.Green kept trying. Every morning, she’d bring me water. Every afternoon, she’d coax a few bites of food into me. Every evening, she’d sit beside me and talk, filling the silence with words I barely heard.I ate just enough to keep the baby alive. Spoke just enough to show I was still breathing. Existed just enough to not completely disappear.But I wasn’t really living. I was just surviving. Barely.One afternoon, I heard voices at the door. Green’s voice and another one I vaguely recognized. Female and familiar. “She’s not doing well,” Green was saying quietly. “She barely eats, barely speaks. I’m terrified, Emma. I don’t know how to reach her.”Footsteps approached the living room where I lay on the couch, my hand resting on my now enormous belly.“Oh, Zara.”Emma’s voice broke, and suddenly she was beside the couch, kneeling on the floor, tears alre

Chapter 76Zara’s POVDays turned into weeks with Phoenix as my anchor.I tried my best to let him bring me joy. Watching him sleep, his tiny chest rising and falling. Feeling his small hand grip my finger. Hearing his soft baby sounds that weren’t quite cries but weren’t quite coos either.The joy wasn’t complete. How could it be when the person who should have been experiencing all of this with me was gone? When Phoenix would never feel his father’s arms around him or hear Josh’s voice telling him bedtime stories?But I tried. For Phoenix’s sake, for Josh’s memory, I tried to find happiness in the small moments. In the way Phoenix would scrunch up his nose when he yawned. In the milk-drunk expression he’d get after feeding.Emma visited regularly, sometimes staying for hours just to hold her nephew and tell him stories about his father. About how Josh had been funny and kind and had loved photography. About how he’d been excited to be a dad, even though he’d been nervous too.Marcus

Chapter 78Zara’s POVBack at Green’s apartment, I spread Josh’s note out on the coffee table and stared at the list of things I needed to do. People to contact. Papers to sign. A life to take control of.It felt overwhelming, but I couldn’t put it off. Josh had left me everything, and I owed it to him to handle it properly.Phoenix slept in his bassinet while I started making calls.First, I called James Morrison, the lawyer Josh had mentioned. His voice was kind but professional when he answered.“Mr. Morrison, my name is Zara Williams. Josh Anderson left instructions for me to contact you.”“Ms. Williams, yes. I’ve been expecting your call. I’m so sorry for your loss.” He paused. “Josh sent someone to see me about 4-5 weeks ago to update his will. He wanted to make sure everything was in order.”“What do I need to do?” I asked, pushing past the pain.“I’ll need you to come to my office with identification. We’ll go through the will, and I’ll start the process of transferring everyt

Chapter 80Zara’s POVOne year. Three hundred and sixty-five days since the warehouse. Since Robert died.A full year of surviving, breathing, existing in a world that still felt wrong without him. Green has gotten married, staying with her husband now. She left the house for me till I’m ready to leave and she visits time to time. A true friend she really is.Phoenix was walking now, taking wobbly steps around Green’s apartment while holding onto furniture for balance. He was saying simple words like “mama” and “no” and “more.” Growing and changing every single day.I’d survived. That was something, at least.The sales had all gone through. Anderson Consulting had sold to a larger firm for a substantial sum. Josh’s house on Maple Drive had attracted multiple bidders and sold above asking price. The cars, the investments, everything had been liquidated and converted into one number that still made my head spin.Ten million dollars.Ten million dollars sitting in an account, untouched.