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Maybe I’m not a diamond after all. I feel more like shattered glass. The shards are so sharp that even the slightest touch is enough to cut deep.
I don’t know how long I lie there, sobbing in the shower, the water stinging my wounds and the warmth of the blood trickling down my legs. I’m not sure if it’s minutes or hours that pass, but eventually, the silence settles over me like a heavy blanket.
Finally, I gather the strength to turn off the water and slowly climb out of the shower. I reach for my towel and wrap it tightly around my body, then I stare at my reflection in the mirror. My eyes are red and swollen, but something in them remains unbroken.
I’m not shattered glass. I may be cracked, broken, flawed even…but I remain unbroken.
There’s a fire burning deep in my soul, an unquenchable thirst for…more. It’s not enough that the men who hurt me are dead. I need to do more. I own and control their empires, and I plan to dismantle them step by step. Starting with the skin trade.
What did Axel call it? Fireflies? He said Nico could be trusted, so maybe that’s where I’ll start. It seems a worthy cause, to stop any other woman from going through what I had to.
I realise this is what I need: a calling, a focus, something to drive me and keep me going. Without it, I’ll crumble, and I refuse to do that.
As I exit the bathroom, I catch a glimpse of the vase of flowers on the windowsill.I’m sure they weren’t there this morning. Roses and peonies, a reminder of love and life lost. But also a symbol of hope. The hope that one day, I’ll be reunited with my loves, and the pain I’ve endured will have a purpose.
I just know that that day will not come anytime soon, not while I have two lives depending on me. I have to keep going for them.
“I’m sorry, my loves,” I whisper to the moon, my fingers stroking the velvety petals of the flowers. “You’ll have to wait a little longer to see me again.”
I touch my lips to the largest peony and silently say goodbye. Unable to bear the thought of shutting out the night on them though, I leave the curtains open, inviting them to watch over me while I sleep.
Dropping my towel, I climb into bed, pulling the covers right up over me. I cocoon myself away from the world and drift off into a beautiful dreamless sleep.
“You heard me.” I growl at Tom. He’s the best tattoo artist in the country, and the only person I would trust with such an important task. I have no idea why he’s baulking at such a simple task.
“You want me to tattoo this design?”
“Yes.”
“On…there.” He nods to the slowly rising and falling chest of my doe.
“Yes.”
“While she’s unconscious?”
I pull out my gun and level it at him. “Do we have a problem?”
He swallows audibly. “N-no p-problem.”
“Good.”
While he’s busy setting up his equipment, I put my gun away and remove the syringe from my inside jacket pocket. I release the cap and carefully administer the drug into the arm of my sleeping doe.
“What’s that?” he asks warily.
I could kill him for asking questions, but that won’t get the magnificent vision transferred onto my doe’s chest. So instead, I answer him.
“Fertility treatment.”
Sobbing wakes me, and it’s not until I press my hands to my eyes to wipe the sleep away that I realise it’s me that was crying.
I throw back the duvet and glance at the time on my phone. It’s almost four in the morning.
Knowing that I won’t get back to sleep, I make my way to the bathroom to wash my face and brush my teeth. I braid my hair too and then grab cosy clothes from the dresser. Once I’mdressed, I wonder what to do, but the moonlight is still shining brightly through the window, and I feel an urge to be outside in it, so I pull on some shoes and slip downstairs.
It’s silly that I’m taking pains to be so quiet in my own, empty house, but I guess it’s an ingrained habit.
Outside, the early morning air is cool, the grass damp underfoot. I bypass the secret garden and Axel’s beautiful greenhouse, allowing my feet to take me deeper into the woods on instinct. Axel told me that the grounds are vast, that we own the entire woods and everything on the grounds. Even a small chapel and cemetery.
