Chapter 3

Bradley and Kylie started their new life together. They were inseparable, their happy photos plastered all over the news and social media.

I moved out of the apartment he provided and into a small, sterile room in the staff quarters.

It was for the best. I packed my few belongings, my heart a hollow, echoing chamber. There wasn't much. A few changes of clothes, some books, and the glass jar, now more than half full of black stones. I looked at it and a bitter laugh escaped my lips.

One morning, I received a call. It was Bradley's butler. "Miss Holt, Mr. Porter requests your presence at the main family estate."

A sense of foreboding washed over me. I hadn't seen him in weeks.

The moment I stepped into the grand foyer of the Porter estate, a sharp sting exploded on my cheek.

Kylie had slapped me. Hard.

The force of it sent me stumbling back. My cheek burned, but the pain was distant, overshadowed by the icy dread in my heart.

"What was that for?" I asked, my voice steady despite the shock.

"You thief!" she shrieked, her face a mask of rage. "You stole my mother's emerald necklace! The one Bradley gave me!"

I stared at her, confused. I had never seen that necklace in my life, except in the photos in his secret box. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Liar!" She slapped me again, on the other cheek. This time, I saw it coming but didn't move.

Blood trickled from the corner of my lip. I tasted copper.

"Bradley! Look at her! She's not even denying it!" Kylie ran to Bradley, who was standing by the fireplace, watching the scene unfold with cold detachment. She threw herself into his arms, sobbing dramatically. "That was the last thing my mother gave me before she passed away! How could she do this?"

He stroked her hair, murmuring comforting words I could never hear. His eyes, however, were fixed on me. They were as hard and unforgiving as granite.

"Kylie wants you punished," he said, his voice flat. "She wants you to kneel on the gravel path outside, in the rain, until she forgives you."

It was a cold, rainy day. The temperature was dropping. My wound from the bullet had not fully healed.

I looked at him, searching for a sign, any sign, that he didn't believe her. But there was nothing. Just empty indifference. He was a judge who had already passed sentence.

"Fine," I said. My voice was quiet, but firm.

I walked out of the house, into the pouring rain. I knelt on the sharp gravel, the small stones digging into my knees.

Before I fully settled, I turned my head and looked at them through the large glass window.

"You know, Kylie," I said, my voice carrying over the sound of the rain. "The old Kaci would have begged for mercy. She would have cried and sworn her innocence."

Kylie's fake sobs stopped. She looked at me, her eyes filled with hatred.

"The old Kaci was weak," I continued. "She was a girl who cried when she was hurt. A girl who pleaded for a scrap of affection."

I remembered a time, early on, when I had failed a training exercise. I had cried from the pain and exhaustion. Bradley had found me.

"Tears are for the weak," he had said, his voice laced with contempt. "If you want to stay by my side, you become strong. You become unbreakable."

So I did. I stopped crying. I learned to swallow my pain. I learned to be the weapon he wanted me to be.

"I begged you to see me," I whispered to the man behind the glass, though he couldn't hear. "I begged for you to look at me, just once, as a person."

The rain soaked me to the bone. The cold seeped into my body, a deep, chilling ache. My knees were on fire.

Through the window, I could see Bradley leading Kylie to the dining room. He had his arm around her. They were laughing. He pulled out a chair for her, his movements full of a tenderness he had never shown me.

I remembered all the times I had trained in the freezing rain, pushing my body to its limits, just to be worthy of standing behind him. I remembered the pain, the exhaustion, the belief that my suffering would one day be recognized.

He never noticed. His gentleness was reserved for only one person. And it wasn't me.

A bitter smile touched my lips. How foolish I had been.

I am not meant to be cherished. I am meant to be broken.

But something inside me had shifted. The pain was still there, but it was different. It was no longer the pain of a heartbroken girl. It was the cold, hard anger of a woman who had nothing left to lose.

I will kneel. I will endure this punishment.

But this is the last time.

From this day forward, I will live for myself.