Chapter 28
The silence that followed was different this time. It wasn’t just shock; it was the sound of a grave being dug. Amara looked at Seb, her eyes two cold, dark pools of memory.
“I called you,” she said, her voice a ghostly whisper that filled every corner of the room. “The day I lost our baby. I screamed for you. I begged for you. And you let the phone ring until the world went black p>
She thought of that miracle, the tiny heartbeat that had been hers for a fleeting moment extinguished in the dirt.
Seb scrambled to his feet, his face pale as a shroud. His breath came in ragged gasps as a memory he had tried to bury clawed its way out. He remembered the whispers of the nurses at the hospital, the gossip he had pushed away because the truth was too heavy to carry.
“Baby?” he stammered, his voice cracking. “What baby, Amara? When… when did you call? I didn’t know. I swear, I didn’t know p>
Amara let out a short, jagged laugh that sounded like breaking glass.
“You’re still playing the part,” she said, stepping into his space until he had to look her in the eye. “You’re still pretending you didn’t know Elara had me stuffed in a sack that night. You’re pretending you didn’t watch as your men broke me. You’re pretending you didn’t hear me scream while you stood by and protected her p>
The guests froze. The air in the gala turned to ice. It wasn’t just a betrayal anymore; it was a crime written in blood.
Amara leaned in closer, her voice dropping to a lethal hum. “You didn’t just lie to me, Seb. You killed the only thing that was ever real between us. And now, you want to talk about love p>
Seb’s face went white, the blood draining away until he looked like a ghost. He reached out, his fingers trembling, trying to catch the hem of her dress.
“I didn’t know!” he choked out, the words stumbling over each other. “Amara, I swear on my life… I didn’t know it was you in that sack. I thought…Elara said it was the men you sent after her, someone trying to hurt her. I would never touch you. All these years, I never let a single tear fall from your eyes! How could I have you beaten? I loved you p>
The realization began to sink into his eyes like poison. He looked over at Elara, who was shrinking into the shadows, her face twisted in a silent, ugly panic. He had been a puppet, and she had pulled the strings until he had broken the only thing he actually valued.
“I didn’t know,” he whispered again, his voice breaking. “I didn’t know it was my own child p>
” DO YOU REALLY KNOW HOW TO THINK? “
Amara’s scream tore through the room, shattering the last of the silence. It wasn’t just a shout; it was the sound of seven years of happiness turning into nothing, her agony finally exploding.
“You didn’t know? You didn’t check? You heard screaming in a sack, being kicked and broken by your own men, and because you thought it wasn’t me, it was okay? Because you thought it was someone else, the pain didn’t matter p>
She stepped into his light, her eyes burning with a fire that could level cities.
“You say you never let a tear fall,” she hissed, her voice dropping to a deadly, jagged edge. “But you let my blood and our child’s blood spill into the dirt while you held Elara’s hand. You didn’t need to know it was me, Seb. You just needed to be a human being. And you failed p>
The room watched as the Great Seb fell back, his spirit finally snapping under the weight of his own shadow.
The room felt like an open wound. Elara stepped forward, her face crumpling into a mask of perfect, practiced grief. She reached for Seb’s sleeve, her voice a fragile whisper.
“Mrs. Creed…Amara…I know that day with the photo frame was an accident. I know you’re angry. But to say such things? To lie about a sack, about men She looked at Seb, her eyes wide and swimming with fake stars. “How could I ever hurt her, Seb? I’ve stayed in my place. I’ve been quiet. I’ve been small. You know me p>
For the first time in six years, Seb didn’t reach out to steady her. He looked at her, and the scales finally fell from his eyes. He didn’t see a victim; he saw a monster wrapped in silk. His lip curled in a silent, jagged disdain that made Elara’s breath hitch.
“I didn’t do it!” she cried, the pitch of her voice rising as she felt his heart slip through her fingers. “I swear to God, I didn’t p>
Then, a small voice cut through the heavy air.
“Daddy,” Seren said, stepping beside Elara. She looked at Seb with a hard, defiant stare that no child should possess. “You have to look at the facts. How can she prove it? How can Mommy Elara be blamed when there’s no proof she did it on purpose p>
The word Mommy hit Amara harder than any fist. She stood there, watching the child she had bled for, the child she had shielded from every storm, stand like a tiny soldier in front of the woman who had tried to kill her.
Amara wasn’t surprised. Deep down, she had known the roots were poisoned long ago. But knowing didn’t stop the knife from turning in her chest. It didn’t stop the cold realization that she had been raising her own replacement’s legacy.
She looked at the three of them…the liar, the coward, and the child who had been taught to hate…and she felt the last string of her old life snap.
Elara’s voice grew bolder as she saw the flicker of doubt in Seb’s eyes. She straightened her back, dabbing at a dry eye. “That’s right. How could you say such things? Are you so bitter that you’d try to destroy me? To tear this family apart with lies p>
Amara watched Seb. She watched the way his shoulders lost their tension, the way his gaze softened as he looked at Elara’s trembling lip. Ten years. Ten years of shared breaths, of whispered dreams, of a love she thought was written in the stars. She searched his face for a trace of the man who once promised to protect her, but he was gone. He was a stranger wearing a dead man’s face.
Where did you go? she wondered, the thought a silent scream in her mind. What did I do wrong to be erased like this?
The pain was a physical weight, a cold blade twisting in her gut. But beneath the pain, something else was hardening. The soft, nurturing woman she had been was dying, and a queen was rising from the ashes.
“You want proof?” Amara’s voice was no longer a whisper. It was a thunderclap that stilled every heart in the room.
“I’ll give you the truth now. And once you see it, don’t you dare ask for a single drop of mercy p>