Chapter 4

Keira Ellis POV:

A week later, I was about to head out for dinner when the doorbell rang. I opened it to find Axel standing on the porch. And beside him, cradling a fluffy Persian cat in her arms, was Diana.

Her face, which had been pale and tear-stained a week ago, was now glowing with triumph. A fresh, angry-looking scar marred the skin above her lip where her mole used to be, a self-inflicted wound to match mine. It was a grotesque, possessive gesture. She was marking herself as the original, me as the flawed copy.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, my voice flat. I tried to keep my eyes off the cat, but my heart started to pound. I'm severely allergic. Axel knew this. He' d once gotten rid of a stray I' d taken in because my face had swollen up.

"Axel is moving me in," Diana announced, a sickly sweet smile on her face. "This house is much bigger than my apartment. And Leo needs room to run around."

"This is my house," I said, my voice shaking slightly. I stood my ground, blocking the doorway.

My body was already reacting. My eyes started to itch, and I felt a familiar tightness in my chest.

Diana's smile turned into a sneer. "Not for long." She thrust the cat at me. "Here, hold him for a second."

"No!" I stumbled back, but she was too quick. She shoved a wriggling ball of fur and claws into my arms.

Instinctively, I tried to push the cat away, but its claws latched onto my sweater. One sharp claw caught the back of my hand, tearing the skin. A line of bright red blood welled up. The pain was sharp, but it was nothing compared to the panic rising in my throat.

The cat, frightened by my sudden movement, hissed and bit my arm, its sharp little teeth sinking into my flesh. I cried out, finally managing to shove it off me. It landed on the floor with a screech and darted behind Diana' s legs.

"What do you think you're doing?" Diana shrieked, scooping the cat up. "You hurt him!"

I clutched my bleeding hand, my lungs feeling like they were on fire. I started to wheeze. My eyes were swelling shut.

"Axel," I gasped, turning to him, my last shred of instinct screaming for the man who had once promised to protect me. "Help me."

He looked at me, at my bleeding hand and my gasping breaths. For a moment, his face was a mask of cold indifference. Then, he took a half-step back, deliberately moving out of my reach.

He avoided me.

The world stopped. In that single, cruel movement, everything shattered. Every memory of him holding me, comforting me, telling me he loved me-it all turned to dust. The man standing before me wasn't my husband. He was a monster who would watch me suffocate rather than inconvenience the woman he truly loved.

"Axel," Diana whined, tugging on his arm. "She hurt Leo. Are you going to let her get away with that?" She glared at me, her eyes filled with venom. "I want her gone. Now. Or I'm leaving."

It was the same ultimatum she' d used in the lobby. The same test of his loyalty.

And once again, he failed me.

He looked from Diana's furious face to my struggling one. He watched me clawing at my throat, my vision blurring from the allergic reaction.

Then he nodded at Diana. "Do what you want," he said, his voice a cold, flat line. "I won't stop you."

My heart didn't just break. It disintegrated. Utterly and completely.

He turned his back on me and gestured to his bodyguards, who had been standing silently by the car. "Take Mrs. Delacruz somewhere she can... cool off."

The words were a death sentence.

The guards grabbed my arms, their grips merciless. I was too weak to fight back. My lungs burned, and black spots danced in my vision.

"Axel," I choked out, my voice a desperate, ragged whisper. "Dogs... I'm afraid of dogs... you know that..."

It was my deepest, most primal fear, a childhood trauma he knew all about. He had once held me all night after I had a nightmare about it.

He paused at the door, but he didn't turn around. Diana looped her arm through his, a triumphant smirk on her face. "Don't worry, Keira," she said, her voice dripping with false concern. "They're just playing. They won't bite. Much."

Axel said nothing. He simply walked into my house, our house, with her on his arm, and closed the door behind them, shutting me out in every sense of the word.

"I hate you," I wheezed at the closed door. "I hate you both."

The guards dragged me across the manicured lawn to a small outbuilding I' d never seen opened before-the dog kennels. The sound of vicious, hungry barking filled the air. They threw open the door, revealing a concrete room filled with snarling, half-starved dogs, their eyes glowing in the dim light.

They shoved me inside.

The smell of filth and animal musk hit me, and my already struggling lungs seized up. I fell to my knees, gasping for air that wouldn't come. The dogs lunged, their barks deafening, their teeth snapping inches from my face.

Terror, absolute and overwhelming, consumed me.

Through the haze of pain and fear, I fumbled for my phone. My fingers were clumsy, numb, but I managed to dial 911. I couldn't speak, could only produce a choked, wheezing sound into the receiver.

I gave them the address, my last coherent thought before my world dissolved into a cacophony of barking and the suffocating darkness of anaphylactic shock.

Just before I lost consciousness, I saw flashing red and blue lights through the kennel's grimy window.

Help had come. But it was too late for the woman I used to be. She was already gone.

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