Chapter 3

Jackson and Candida burst into the room at the sound of the boy's screams. Their faces were masks of alarm.

Jackson immediately rushed to Joey's side, scooping him up into his arms. He didn't even glance at me.

"What's wrong, Joey? What happened?" he asked, his voice frantic.

"She burned me!" the boy sobbed, pointing a trembling, uninjured finger at me. "She did it on purpose! She hates me!"

Jackson's head snapped toward me. His eyes, moments ago filled with fake concern for me, were now blazing with cold fury.

"Elena, what is the meaning of this?" he demanded, his voice low and dangerous. "He's just a child. How could you?"

"I didn't-" I started, but he cut me off.

"He's our son now," Jackson snarled. "I brought him here for you, to give you a family, and this is how you treat him? Because you can't have one of your own, you're going to hurt an innocent boy?"

The words were a slap in the face. He was using my pain, the sacrifice I made for him, as a weapon against me.

He turned his back on me, his attention focused solely on the crying child. "It's okay, Joey. Daddy's here. I'll get the doctor. We'll take care of you."

He carried the boy out of the room, Candida following close behind. Before she left, she shot me a look over her shoulder. It was a look of pure, triumphant hatred.

I was left alone in the room, the smell of chicken soup thick in the air. The broken bowl lay on the floor, a symbol of my shattered life. My hand throbbed with a searing pain.

Jackson had never even looked at my burn.

I laughed, a bitter, broken sound that echoed in the empty room. What a fool I had been.

I went into the bathroom and ran cold water over my hand. The skin was blistering. I found the first-aid kit and clumsily wrapped the burn, the pain a sharp, physical reminder of the deeper, invisible wounds he had inflicted.

I remembered a time, years ago, when I had cut my finger while cooking. It was a tiny cut, barely bleeding. Jackson had rushed me to the emergency room, his face pale with worry. He had held my hand the entire time, whispering that he couldn't bear to see me in any pain.

That man was gone. Or maybe he had never existed at all.

Love, I realized with a chilling certainty, was not eternal. It could die. It could be killed.

The door opened, and Jackson walked in. He saw my bandaged hand and had the decency to look guilty.

"Elena, I..." he began. "I'm sorry for what I said. I was just worried about Joey."

He came closer, his voice softening. "He's just a little boy. He didn't mean to cause trouble. Can you find it in your heart to forgive him?"

I stared at him, my heart a frozen lump in my chest. He was asking me to forgive the child who had deliberately hurt me, while he had accused me of malice.

I said nothing.

He sighed, a sound of weary patience. "Look, Joey is very shaken. I'm going to sleep in his room tonight, to make sure he's okay."

It was another excuse to be with her. I knew it. But I no longer cared.

"Fine," I said, my voice flat.

He seemed surprised by my easy agreement. He had expected a fight, tears, accusations. He didn't know that the woman who would have done those things was already dead.

He leaned in and kissed my forehead, a brief, cool touch. "Get some rest."

Then he was gone.

I lay in our massive, empty bed, staring into the darkness. I was an outsider in my own home, a stranger in my own life.

Later, I heard it.

The sound came from the room next door, the one Jackson was supposedly sharing with the child. It was a soft sound at first, a muffled cry.

Then, a low moan. Jackson's voice, thick with a pleasure I knew so well.

And then another sound. A woman's gasp, a mix of pain and ecstasy. Candida.

"You animal," she whimpered. "I hate you."

"You love it," Jackson growled back, his voice a low thrum of passion. "Say my name, Candida. Say it."

"Never," she sobbed.

His response was a low laugh, followed by the rhythmic, unmistakable sounds of two bodies moving together.

I squeezed my eyes shut, my hands balling into fists. I pressed my face into the pillow to stifle the scream that rose in my throat.

He was in the next room, with the woman who had stabbed me, who had taken my future from me. He was making love to her, while I lay here, broken and alone.

My mind flashed back to a time when his parents had objected to our marriage because of my family's lower social standing. Jackson had stood up to them, his voice ringing with conviction. "I love Elena," he had declared. "I will marry her, with or without your blessing. She is the only one I will ever love."

He had been so fierce, so loyal. My rock. My protector.

That loyalty was now a joke. His love, a lie.

I lay there for hours, listening to the sounds of his betrayal, until the house finally fell silent. I didn't sleep. I just stared into the darkness, my heart completely and utterly dead.