Lahat ng Kabanata ng HIS TO RUIN: Kabanata 91 - Kabanata 100

SELENE.I stood in front of the mirror longer than I meant to.The dress was already on—ivory, clean, fitted perfectly. I ran my palms down the front of it, not because it needed fixing, but because I needed something to do with my hands. The woman staring back at me looked composed. Polished. Like someone who had finally arrived.She didn’t look full.I leaned closer, studying my eyes, searching for excitement. Pride. Something loud enough to match the day. All I saw was quiet. The kind that settles in when you’ve won something but lost people along the way.I had achieved a lot.Today, I was launching my company. My name was on the contracts, the doors, the future. Everything I’d built with patience and restraint was about to step into the world.I should have felt complete.“You did it,” I murmured.The words didn’t echo back.My phone lay on the dresser. I picked it up without thinking, scrolling absently through notifications until my thumb slowed.Damien.His name wasn’t there.

DAMIEN.I saw it and my chest froze.Marcus Hale.Walking into Selene’s apartment. On the screen. Damien could only stare.“No… no… no…” I whispered. “Not again. Not her.”I slammed my fists against the desk. “You lied. You’re alive. You’re still here.”Everything inside me shifted. Anger. Fear. Panic. The old rhythm of control I clung to slipped through my fingers like water.“I’m coming. I’m coming. I’m not going to let him—”I grabbed my keys, my fingers fumbling, shaking. My heart was hammering in my throat. I coughed, hard, as if my lungs were catching up to my brain.The engine roared the second I pressed the ignition. Tires screamed on asphalt.“Drive,” I told myself. “Just drive.”Every light on the road streaked past. Every shadow looked like him. Every empty intersection made me twitch.“Why now?” I shouted at the steering wheel. “Why tonight?”I could see her face in my mind. Selene, calm and precise in her apartment, unaware of what had just walked through her door.“Don’t

SELENE.I sat still on my bed, my hands buried deep into my head.Still? My legs betrayed the illusion of stillness my mind projected, jerking endlessly, bouncing and rocking till my ankles throbbed from the constant movement. But I did not stop. I couldn't. However, I had to be still. If I wanted to strike Marcus, then I had to suspend the movement my body made and craft out a quiet but solid plan. I had to think like him and thinking like Marcus meant doing the unusual. Marcus did what people considered impossible and I knew I had to adopt his ruthless method. Even if it meant…“Okay, let’s agree it’s Marcus. What do you intend to do?” Damien’s voice cut into my train of thought, sharp and perfectly timed, as though he’d interrupted a plan already forming in my head.His hand was on my shoulders, his weight reminding me of the burden I carried and the one I was yet to carry—one I was sure he would not approve of."It's simple. It's me he wants and it's me he'll get." I said, un

SELENE.Marcus always believed obsession was a kind of ownership. He never imagined I would one day use it against him.He always believed he had the upper hand, always believed he was in charge, always believed control and power were all you needed to keep a woman.Today, I used that very control and power against him.“We’ve come to the end of the road, Marcus. We’ve dragged this shit on for too long. It’s best you give it a rest,” Damien finally spoke.We. Because I did not do it alone—could not do it alone.Hearing his voice filled me with a rush of excitement and joy.My body was overwhelmed by the surge of emotions that hit me all at once. My knees gave way, and I sank low, crouching as I brought my palm up to cover my face. Quiet sobs slipped through my fingers as I cried, my shoulders trembling under the weight of everything I was feeling.“Get your hands off me!” Marcus roared.“Do you know who I am?”“Yes,” I said, straightening from my bent position and wiping my red, swoll

IRIS.The woman that stared back at me was one I could not recognize. Her eyes were sunken and covered in dark circles, her cheekbones were defined—not from makeup or beauty standards but from grief. Her hair was a dirty brown shade, ruffled and disheveled, her clothes had no colour, vibrancy, or life in them, and her complexion was pale.The woman that stared back at me, eyes unflinching but swollen from grief, was one I’d run away from on a random sunny afternoon because she looked like an escaped psychiatric patient. She was one I’d avoid while trying to catch a bus.But not anymore…Because that woman was me.I couldn’t run away from this woman, because she was the reflection of who I had become—what grief had turned me into.I leaned in closer to the mirror and poked my forefinger into it, as though the figure in the mirror was a creature from a fantasy world.The mirror was broken, almost split into two. And the version of myself that reflected through the mirror was a perfect in