Chapter 5

Back at the mansion, Cedric made good on his threat. He was a man possessed by a cold, righteous fury. He saw my attachments not as part of my identity, but as flaws in his prized possession. Flaws to be eliminated.

He started in my studio. He tore my sketches from the walls, my fashion books from the shelves, and threw them into a pile in the fireplace.

Then he moved to the bedroom. He took the small, framed photo of my parents from my bedside table.

"You don't need this," he said, his voice devoid of emotion. He smashed the frame against the mantelpiece and tossed the shattered remains into the growing pile.

He found my old journals, filled with my private thoughts, my dreams, my grief. He flipped through one, his lip curling in disdain.

"Sentimental nonsense."

He threw them into the fire. I watched my life turn to ash.

"Did you know, Cedric?" I asked, my voice a dead whisper. "All this time, did you know how much these things meant to me?"

He didn't answer. He just continued his methodical destruction. The silence was his confession. He knew. He just didn't care. My feelings were an inconvenience.

Then he went for the one thing I thought was untouchable.

"Get dressed," he ordered. "We're going out."

He took me to the serene, marble-faced columbarium where my parents' ashes rested in a small, bronze urn. It was my last physical connection to them, the one place I could go to feel close to them.

I knew what he was going to do.

I fell to my knees in front of the niche.

"No, Cedric, please," I begged, tears streaming down my face. "Not this. Please, not this."

I clung to the cold marble, trying to shield the urn with my body.

He pried my fingers away, one by one. His strength was effortless, absolute.

"Let go, Keena."

"I'll be good," I sobbed, my voice breaking. "I'll do whatever you say. Just please, don't do this."

For a single, fleeting moment, he hesitated. I saw a flicker of something in his eyes, a shadow of the man I thought I loved. Then it was gone, replaced by the cold, hard resolve of a tyrant.

He took the urn from the niche and handed it to the facility attendant who stood by, looking pale and nervous.

"Scatter them," Cedric commanded.

He looked down at me, my body convulsing with sobs on the cold floor.

"This is for your own good," he said, his voice as sterile as the marble around us. "These things make you weak. They make you unstable."

The attendant, following orders, took the urn to the scattering garden.

I screamed. A raw, ragged sound of a soul being torn apart. I scrambled forward, trying to catch the dust, the last remnants of the people who had loved me unconditionally.

My fingers closed on empty air.

The world went black.

I woke in our bed. Cedric was sitting beside me, a tray of food on his lap. It was the familiar routine. The cruelty, followed by the clinical care.

"Eat," he said.

I turned my head away.

"Keena, don't be difficult," he sighed, a note of impatience in his voice. "I did what was necessary. You were becoming hysterical."

He called for the nurse. She came in and inserted an IV into my arm, pumping nutrients directly into the body he was so desperate to preserve.

A few days later, he forced me to attend a Burke family dinner. His mother, Caroline, a formidable woman with eyes like chips of granite, cornered me.

"It's been five years, Keena," she said, her voice sharp. "When are you going to give Cedric an heir?"

Before I could answer, Cedric stepped in.

"We're not having children," he said firmly.

Caroline's perfectly arched eyebrows rose. "Don't be ridiculous, Cedric. The Burke line needs to continue."

"Keena's health won't allow it," he said. It was the perfect excuse, the one he always used. "A pregnancy would put too much strain on her heart."

He looked so noble, so protective. I wanted to laugh. He wasn't protecting me. He was protecting Fallon's heart. He didn't want a Burke heir. He wanted to preserve his living memorial to another woman.

I felt a bitter smile touch my lips.

A little while later, Cedric's phone rang. A crisis at his company in Asia. He had to leave immediately.

As soon as he was gone, Caroline's cold eyes fixed on me.

"Follow me," she ordered.

She led me to a small, starkly furnished study. The air was cold.

"Now," she said, her voice like steel. "Tell me the truth. Is it you who doesn't want to have a child?"

I looked at this cold, domineering woman, the matriarch of the family that had systematically destroyed me. For the first time, I felt no fear. There was nothing left for them to take.

"Yes," I said, my voice quiet but clear. "I will not have a child."

Her face darkened with rage.

"You are a Burke now. You will do your duty."

I looked her straight in the eye.

"No."

In that moment, I made a silent promise to myself. I was leaving. Soon. They would not hold me here for another day.