Chapter 4

The key scraped in the lock of their grim apartment.

Elara stepped inside, the familiar scent of dust and despair clinging to the air.

She' d half expected Liam not to follow, to stay in his gilded cage with Chloe.

But there he was, pacing the small living room, his expensive suit looking utterly out of place against the backdrop of their poverty.

He whirled around as she entered, his face a mask of fury.

"What the hell was that, Elara? Humiliating me in front of Chloe? In front of my associates?"

"Your associates?" Elara said, her voice devoid of emotion. "You mean the man who supervises my cleaning gig and the loan shark you invented?"

Liam' s jaw tightened. "They work for me. It' s complicated. You wouldn' t understand."

"Oh, I think I' m starting to understand a lot of things," Elara said. She walked to the rickety table and placed the envelope of cash down. Not for him. For her. Her escape fund.

"Five years, Liam."

He ran a hand through his perfectly styled hair. "I was going to tell you. When the time was right."

"When the time was right?" she echoed. "After another hundred thousand? After I' d worked myself into an early grave?"

He stepped closer, his voice dropping to a softer, more manipulative tone. The tone he' d used so often.

"Elara, baby, listen. It all got out of hand. I come from money, yes. Old money. They have expectations. I wanted to make it on my own first, to prove myself to you, to them."

He gestured vaguely. "The startup... it wasn' t entirely a lie. It just... it became something bigger. I didn' t want to burden you with it."

"Burden me?" Elara laughed, a harsh, bitter sound. "You let me work three jobs. You watched me come home exhausted, sometimes crying from the pain in my back, my hands bleeding. How was that not a burden?"

He flinched. "I... I needed to see if you truly loved me. Not my money."

The excuse was so flimsy, so insulting, it barely registered.

Her eyes fell on the small, tarnished silver locket around her neck.

She remembered the day he gave it to her. They were in art school, sitting by the river. He' d called himself a "struggling entrepreneur" even then, full of big dreams and an empty wallet.

The locket was vintage, he' d said, something he' d found in a little antique shop. Inside, a tiny, intricately carved hummingbird.

"For my beautiful, delicate bird," he' d whispered, fastening it around her neck. "Always flying, always striving."

His words then had seemed so sincere. Now, they were just another layer of his elaborate deceit.

She reached up, her fingers fumbling with the clasp.

"Don' t," he said, his voice suddenly sharp. "Don' t take it off."

His eyes, which moments ago held a practiced contrition, now glinted with something possessive, almost menacing.

"This locket," Elara said, her voice trembling slightly, "was it also a lie, Liam? Bought with the money you always had?"

He didn' t answer. He just stared at her, his handsome face contorting.

"You ungrateful little bitch," he hissed, the charm vanishing completely. "After everything I' ve done for you. I gave you a life!"

"A life?" She gestured around the squalid room. "This is what you call a life?"

He lunged forward, not at her, but at the small easel in the corner where she kept her few personal art supplies, a couple of old brushes, some dried paints – remnants of a dream she' d almost forgotten.

With a roar, he kicked it over. Brushes scattered. A small, half-finished sketch she' d been idly working on, a study of light on water, fluttered to the floor.

He stomped on it.

The act was so petty, so needlessly cruel, it solidified something within her.

The last vestiges of the man she thought she loved crumbled to dust.

Just then, his phone buzzed, a jarring, cheerful ringtone.

He glanced at it. Chloe.

His anger seemed to drain away, replaced by a look of annoyance, then resignation.

He straightened his suit. "I have to go."

He didn't look at Elara. He didn't look at the mess he'd made.

He just walked out, leaving her alone in the wreckage of their life and her small, shattered dream.