Alle Kapitel von The Anatomy of Wanting Him: Kapitel 31 – Kapitel 36

The police station was a blur of fluorescent lights and the smell of stale coffee. A sharp, violent departure from the scented candles and silk sheets of my former life. I sat in a metal chair that felt like ice against my skin, my black silk gown now looking like a funeral shroud. They hadn't handcuffed me, but the way the officers looked at me—with a mix of pity and disgust felt like shackles."Dr. Sta. Ana, we aren't here to charge you with a crime... yet," the detective said, leaning over the table. He was a graying man who looked like he’d seen every sin Paris had to offer. "But a formal complaint has been filed regarding the welfare of your daughter, Charity. Allegations of an unstable environment, frequent overnight guests of... questionable age, and professional misconduct.""Questionable age?" I snapped, my voice cracking. "Severino is twenty-two. He is an adult. And my daughter was never, never—exposed to anything inappropriate.""The public disagrees," the detective said, s

The adrenaline didn’t leave all at once. It leaked out of me in jagged, shivering pulses as the city of Paris blurred into a streak of grey and gold in the rearview mirror. Behind us, the sirens were a fading choir of chaos, a sound that should have signaled relief but only made my chest feel like it was being crushed by a hydraulic press.I looked down at my hands. They were shaking. Victor’s blood—dark, viscous, and smelling of ironwas drying in the creases of my knuckles. It was the only thing I had left of him."Patricia, breathe." Severino’s voice was low, cracking with a frantic kind of energy. He hadn't let go of the steering wheel with his right hand, but his left was hovering near mine, unsure if he should touch the woman who had just driven a brass spike into a man’s shoulder."I’m breathing," I lied. My lungs felt like they were filled with glass shards.In the backseat, Charity shifted. She wasn't the little girl I used to tuck into bed with fairy tales; she was nineteen,

The mahogany doors of the Palais de Justice felt like the entrance to a guillotine.Three weeks had passed since the gravel in Normandy had soaked up the last of Victor Sinquerra's life. Three weeks of headlines that read like fever dreams: The Fallen King, The Surgeon’s Revenge, and the one that stung the most—The Anemone’s Sting. The media had turned our trauma into a spectator sport, dissecting my life, my age gap with Severino, and my "failures" as a mother with the clinical precision I once used in the operating room.I sat at the witness stand, the fluorescent lights above humming like a swarm of angry hornets. I wasn’t wearing the "submissive wife" silk or the "grieving widow" black. I wore a tailored, slate-grey suit and no jewelry. My face was bare. I wanted them to see the woman who had driven a letter opener into a monster’s shoulder."Dr. Sta. Ana," the prosecutor began, his voice a low, rhythmic drone. "You claim the deceased, Mr. Sinquerra, held you and your daughter aga