EPILOGUE: BRAYEN MALLEN
This marriage was never something I craved. It is a sentence, not a union.
My world remains a desolate shrine to Vallen Zickline the woman I loved to the point of madness. Her death carved a void within me, a jagged, hollow ache that no soul on this earth could ever hope to soothe. She was my beginning and my end, and in her absence, there is only silence.
And then, there is her. Chiella Cruze.
Do not mistake my silence for acceptance, and never dare to hope for kindness. I will ensure every wall I've built remains impenetrable. You will not find a home in my life; instead, you will find only the cold weight of these rotten shackles.
I warned you to refuse. I offered you the chance to run, to vanish before the shadows swallowed you whole. Yet, you were bold insolent enough to step into my wreckage.
Understand this: there is no room for love here. My heart is a tomb, and it belongs solely to Vallen. You think you can fill this emptiness with your pathetic deceptions? I swear on every bitter breath I take, I will make you pay for your audacity in agony.
FLASHBACKS OF TRAUMA (Brayen's POV)
"You…!"
The word erupted from my lungs, shattering the heavy silence of the master suite. My rage was a physical thing—searing, visceral, burning a path up my throat.
There she stood. Chiella Cruze. My wife, by virtue of a cursed piece of paper. She remained in the center of the room, her fingers clutching the hem of her extravagant white gown. She was a statue of ivory and lace—unmoving, unflinching. Empty. There was not a single flicker of emotion on her pale face.
Her silence was an affront; her indifference, a silent provocation that grated against my frayed nerves. Tonight was supposed to be the "wedding night." A sacred threshold for most. But for me? This was a descent into a bespoke hell.
I moved toward her. Each step of my leather shoes against the marble floor echoed with the weight of my resentment.
"I warned you, didn't I?" I hissed. My voice was low, a jagged blade of sound far more lethal than a scream.
I raised my hand, my index finger pointing sharply, nearly grazing her chin. I was still trapped in that suffocating tuxedo a masquerade of elegance, a symbol of this sickening drama. My skin burned; my veins throbbed as if they were ready to burst through the surface.
I was revolted. Revolted by her presence, revolted by the fate that forced her into this space the space that belonged to Vallen.
"Answer me!" I roared.
She merely closed her eyes for a heartbeat, then opened them again, looking through me rather than at me.
"Tonight," I said, my voice dropping into a flat, lethal monotone as I gestured toward the far corner of the room, "you sleep on the sofa."
I pointed to the long velvet couch positioned by the floor-to-ceiling window. Under the cold, intrusive moonlight, Chiella looked even smaller utterly alienated.
"That sofa is your domain. Do not dare lay a finger on this bed. If you do, I swear to God, you will regret ever setting foot in this house, Chiella."
I left her there, abandoned in the vastness of the suite. Not a single spark of guilt flickered in my chest.
I stormed toward my private bar, stripping off the expensive jacket and the vest that felt like gilded shackles, tossing them carelessly onto a chair. The warmth of my body was instantly replaced by the biting chill of the marble.
I uncorked a bottle of single malt. I didn't bother with a glass. The amber liquid burned as I swigged it directly from the neck, but even that fire failed to cauterize the chaos in my mind.
I was spiraling. My heart, my very being, refused to anchor itself to this new reality. I was still drowning in the shadows of Vallen. Three years. Three years since my world collapsed into ash. Since then, I haven't been living; I've merely been a servant to her memory.
Every memory of us remains vivid too vivid haunting the periphery of my vision like a beautiful, agonizing curse.
Three Years Ago: Virelle Highway
That afternoon, I was commanding a boardroom during an expansion meeting, but the world stopped the moment Vallen's name flashed on my screen. It was our final video call. She looked ethereal, her long hair cascading like silk, a radiant smile lighting up her face as she drove.
She was on her way to bring me lunch a meal she had insisted on preparing with her own hands.
"The traffic is a nightmare today," she complained, followed by a light, melodic laugh. "I hope your stomach can hold out until two."
"My stomach is patient," I replied, my smile genuine an expression that feels like a foreign language to me now. "It only has a taste for what you cook, darling."
But in the heartbeat between breaths, the screen transformed into a gallery of horrors. Vallen's face froze, her eyes widening in a sudden, paralyzing shock. Then came the violent shudder of the camera and the deafening, bone-chilling blast of a horn.
Crrrash—!!!
I saw it. I saw it all with agonizing clarity. A massive container truck, its brakes failed, plowed into her car like a relentless beast. The screen spun sky, asphalt, blood before plunging into total, suffocating darkness.
The tremor was real. I dropped my phone and ran. I ran like a madman possessed.
By the time I reached the hospital, the verdict was already written in the sterile air: Vallen was pronounced dead in the operating room. But the cruelty of fate wasn't finished. The doctor, his voice dripping with useless pity, told me that Vallen had been two months pregnant.
Her departure, and the child I would never get to hold, was a blow that leveled my soul to ash.
The echo of that crash still vibrates in my bones, as fresh as if the metal were twisting just last night.
I jolted back to the reality of the freezing suite. My gaze fell blankly on the whiskey bottle in my hand. There, in the corner of the room, sat Chiella. The replacement. The interloper forced upon me by a family who understands nothing.
I knew that if I kept drinking, I would either collide with the pain or drift further away from sanity. I chose the latter, tilting the bottle back without hesitation.
I drank until my throat burned. The bottle was cold, but the liquid was a searing fire. The night had reached its darkest nadir, yet I had never been more awake.
My head throbbed with a jagged rhythm, my body swaying. I stumbled toward the floor-to-ceiling window, desperate for air. But as my blurred vision swept across the horizon, my mind only dragged me backward, deeper into the wreckage of my trauma.
I can never escape it. I am a prisoner to every memory we ever shared.