Chapter 4

Before she could process my words, my hand shot out.

Not to hit her. Not to grab her.

My fingers closed around the delicate silver chain on Ethan's neck. He gasped, stumbling back, but I held firm.

"What are you doing?" Chloe shrieked, her composure finally cracking. "Security!"

The guards started to move, but I was faster. I yanked the chain. It was a duplicate of the one in my pocket, the one she had stopped wearing. Two interlocking rings. A and C.

"This is mine," I said, my voice low and intense, meant only for her.

A memory flooded my mind, unbidden and sharp. Me, lying in a hospital bed five years ago, my arm in a cast after a motorcycle accident. Chloe, refusing to leave my side, sleeping in the uncomfortable visitor's chair for three straight nights.

"The nurses think you're my husband," I had joked, high on painkillers.

She had kissed my forehead. "Let them think what they want."

The nurse, a kind, middle-aged woman, had smiled at her. "He's lucky to have you, dear. I haven't seen devotion like that in a long time."

A week later, she gave me the necklace. She'd found a jeweler in another state who could make it exactly as we'd sketched it on a napkin. She'd driven six hours each way to get it.

"One for you, one for me," she had said, fastening the clasp around my neck. "So we're always connected. A silent promise."

The promise was broken. The connection was a lie.

Tears pricked my eyes, hot and sudden. Not tears of sadness, but of pure, undiluted rage at the memory of a love I now realized was a performance.

"Give it to me, Chloe," I said, my eyes locked on hers. I wasn't asking.

"Alex, stop this," she pleaded, her voice a mix of fear and fury. "You're making a scene."

"You wanted a scene," I snarled. "Here it is."

With a sharp tug, I snapped the thin silver chain from Ethan's neck. He yelped, stumbling backward into one of the guards.

I held the necklace up, the two rings dangling between my fingers.

Then, I reached into my own pocket and pulled out the identical velvet box. I opened it and took out my necklace, the original.

I held them both in my hands. Hers on Ethan, mine in a box. Two cheap copies of a promise she never intended to keep.

"Alex, no," she whispered, a genuine note of panic in her voice. She seemed to realize what I was about to do. She lunged forward, trying to grab them.

But it was too late.

I brought my hands together with all my strength.

The sound of metal crunching and bending filled the hallway. I squeezed, ignoring the sharp edges digging into my palms. I twisted and pulled, grinding the two necklaces against each other until the delicate rings were a mangled, unrecognizable knot of silver.

I opened my hand and let the ruined metal fall to the floor.

It landed with a soft, final clatter on the pristine marble.

Seven years. Over.

Chloe stared at the twisted heap of silver on the floor, her face pale, her mouth slightly open. For the first time since the IPO announcement, she looked genuinely shocked. Speechless.

The victory felt hollow, leaving only a vast, aching emptiness in its place.