192 Hollowed Heart
Martha
The moment Darian and Lucian left, I stayed motionless on the bed, staring at the ceiling. I’d left the door open on purpose, just in case Vander walked by and saw what he’d done. What he’d broken.
He shattered me.
He didn’t raise a hand. He didn’t need to. His silence, his judgment, that was worse.
I’d loved him from the beginning. Every word, every step, every sacrifice, mine. But it had never been enough. Not for a man who kept comparing me to a ghost. He never stopped measuring me against his dead wife. Every time I failed to match her imaginary perfection, he reminded me.
And so I turned my bitterness toward Lucian. I know that now. I shouldn’t have, but I did.
“Darling, let us talk about this,” I linked Vander, soft and desperate.
He didn’t respond.
I stayed in bed, the silence growing louder, heavier. I kept hoping this was all some cruel, surreal dream. But the pain in my chest told me otherwise. This was real. Vander had discarded me, publicly, deliberately.
Humiliated me.
My phone rang, but I couldn’t bring myself to pick it up. I already knew who it was. Daniel Northwood. The bastard had been calling for days, threatening me, demanding repayment for a contract that was now dead in the water. Steel Corp had refused to pay, and now he wanted his money back. As if I owed him anything. As if I wasn’t already drowning.
I couldn’t face him. Not like this.
I linked Jason and told him to bring me a bottle of gin. Not a glass. Just the bottle. My hands were shaking, and my heart felt like it had been hollowed out and filled with broken glass.
When the gin arrived, I didn’t bother with grace. I downed it in swigs, burning my throat, numbing the ache. I started humming old songs, ones I hadn’t sung in years. It was pathetic, I knew that. But I couldn’t stop.
Everything hurt.
I felt abandoned. Forgotten. I hated Vander for what he’d done. For what he was still doing. And for what? What had I really done?
I hadn’t stirred trouble at breakfast. I hadn’t schemed. I hadn’t attacked Lucian or Mara. I had been silent. I had behaved. And still, he blamed me. Still, I was the one cast aside.
He always made me the villain, his emotional punching bag. But this? This was the final blow.
Lucian insulted both of us in front of everyone, and yet I got the punishment. If Darian had said the same things, Vander would have found a way to forgive him. But me? No. I’m disposable.
I started laughing. It was bitter and ugly and loud.
What a joke. What a bloody hypocrite.
My phone rang again, its shrill tone cutting through the haze of gin and heartbreak. This time, I picked it up. I didn’t even check the number at first, I didn’t care. But when I looked at the screen and saw Daniel Northwood, I exhaled sharply.
Of course.
1/2
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<192 Hollowed Heart
I pressed accept and barely got the phone to my ear before he exploded.
“Martha!” he barked.
“You sick b***h!”
The words stung more than I wanted to admit. I blinked, momentarily too dazed to respond.
“What did I do to you, Daniel?” I slurred, my words heavy from the alcohol and the ache inside me.
“They came to arrest us! You didn’t even give me a heads-up! I’m going to rope you in on this, I swear it,”
I sat up in bed, trying to focus through the fog.
+8 Points >
“How, Daniel?” I snapped. “How are you going to rope me in? I didn’t know you were stealing from my husband! You
never told me you were running scams. I thought I was helping a friend. All you had to do was fulfill the damn contracts.
I paused, the words catching in my throat.
“But you didn’t. You ruined his company. You let me take the fall.” My voice cracked.
“Go ahead, lie if you must. I have nothing left to lose. My marriage is already over.”
He went quiet, and for a second I thought he might hang up. But then,
“I want my money back, Martha!” he shouted, like that was the only thing that mattered.
I laughed. A cold, bitter laugh that startled even me.
“Then go find Alaric Moongrove and ask him for it. I gave everything to him.”
And I ended the call before he could say another word.
I sat there, phone in hand, silence pressing in around me. My heart thudded slowly in my chest, heavy with more than alcohol.
Lucian.
I knew it was him who’d ordered the arrests. Vander wouldn’t move so boldly, not like that. Lucian had grown ruthless, sharp-edged. A real Alpha.
And I should’ve treated him better.
I used to love that boy like he was mine. But Vander never gave me a chance to mother him, not really. He kept me in the shadows of his dead wife, made sure Lucian stayed loyal to her memory. I could never compete. I was always less.
Eventually, that resentment turned sour. I lashed out. I tried to claw some respect for myself in any way I could. But in the end… all it did was destroy what little I had.
If I’d just swallowed the bitterness, kept quiet, loved instead of fought… maybe Vander wouldn’t have cast me aside. Maybe I wouldn’t be here now, drunk, broken, and alone.
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