บททั้งหมดของ HIS REGRET MY REVENGE: บทที่ 51 - บทที่ 60

Victor was free. The words echoed in my head like a drumbeat, relentless and terrifying. Victor was free. Victor was free. Victor was free. No matter how many times I repeated them, they didn't feel real. They couldn't be real. He was supposed to be locked away forever. He was supposed to be powerless. He was supposed to be gone. "How?" Julian asked. His voice was barely a whisper. His face had gone pale, the color draining so quickly that I reached out to steady him. His hands were shaking. I had never seen Julian's hands shake before. Not during the divorce. Not during the trial. Not during any of the countless moments when his father had tried to destroy him. "We don't know yet," Ross said. Her voice was tired. Defeated. "The guard is in custody. He's not talking. His lawyer says he'll plead the Fifth. We may never know the full story. But we know Victor had help. Inside help. Someone who was willing to risk everything for him." "Where is Victor now?" I asked. My voice was ste

Three months later, we stood in front of a judge again. But this time, it was different. This time, we weren't fighting for custody. We weren't fighting for our lives. We weren't fighting for anything except each other. We were getting married. The courthouse was small. Old. The kind of place where generations of families had come to mark their most important moments. "Dearly beloved," the judge said. She was a woman in her sixties with gray hair and kind eyes. She had married her own husband in this same courthouse forty years ago. "We are gathered here today to join Julian Thorne and Elara Vance in marriage." Lily was the flower girl. She wore a white dress with pink flowers on it. She threw petals everywhere. On the floor. On the guests. On the judge. Damian was the best man. He wore a gray suit that matched Julian's. He cried. He didn't try to hide it. Chloe was the maid of honor. She wore a blue dress that matched Lily's flowers. She also cried. My mother was there. She

The first sign was a letter. Delivered to the safe house. Slipped under the front door in the middle of the night. No envelope. No stamp. No return address. Just a piece of paper folded in half. "Did you really think you could destroy me? — E" The handwriting was Elias's. Sharp. Angry. Desperate. The letters slanted to the right, as if he had been writing fast, as if he couldn't get the words out quickly enough. The paper was creased. It looked like he had crumpled it and then smoothed it out again. Julian read the letter. Then he handed it to me. Then to Damian. "He knows where we are," Damian said. "He's always known. He just didn't have a reason to act. Now he does." "How did he find us?" "I don't know. Maybe Victor told him. Maybe he has his own sources. Maybe he's been watching us all along." We read the letter again. The words burned into my brain. "Did you really think you could destroy me?" "Yes," I said. "Yes, we did." The second sign was a phone call. Damian's

Elias's trial began six weeks later. The courthouse was the same one where Victor had been convicted. The same gray walls. The same hard benches. The same smell of fear and old paper. But this time, it was different. This time, we weren't afraid. Elias sat at the defense table in an orange jumpsuit. His hair was disheveled. His face was gaunt. Prison had not been kind to him. He looked nothing like the man in the photographs. He looked like a ghost. Damian testified first. He walked to the stand with his head high. His voice was steady. He looked at Elias as he spoke. "Elias is my brother," he said. "I loved him. I still love him. But love doesn't mean forgiveness. Love doesn't mean forgetting. Love doesn't mean pretending that the past didn't happen. He made choices. He chose Victor. He chose greed. He chose to betray his own blood. He chose to betray everyone who ever loved him." The jury listened. They took notes. They nodded. They looked at Elias with cold eyes. Chloe test

We didn't go anywhere fancy for our honeymoon. No tropical islands. No European castles. No five-star resorts with private beaches and champagne on arrival. We went to the ocean. The same ocean we had run to when Victor was hunting us. The same beach where Lily had played. The same cottage with the blue shutters and the porch facing the water. It felt different now. Brighter. The sky was bluer. The water was clearer. The air smelled like salt and freedom. Lily stayed with Damian and Chloe. She had been nervous at first. "Will you come back?" she had asked. "Always," Julian had said. "We'll always come back." "Promise?" "Promise." She had hugged us and run off to play with Damian. Now it was just us. Julian and me. Alone for the first time in what felt like forever. "I don't know what to do with myself," I said, standing on the beach. The waves lapped at my feet. The sun was warm on my face. "Neither do I." Julian came up behind me. His arms wrapped around my waist. "But I