Chapter 2
1430 Words
~ Becca ~
I didn’t know how I made it out of that hotel alive.
My feet were bleeding from the glass, but I didn’t feel it. My hands were shaking, but I didn’t feel that either. All I could feel was the air cold, sharp, slicing through my chest like it was trying to carve out whatever pieces of me still believed in love.
I made it to the hallway before the first tear slid down my cheek.
Just one.
The rest stayed trapped inside, boiling like acid.
I pressed the elevator button with a bloody fingertip and stared at the doors until my reflection blurred. Mascara smeared under my eyes. My hair was a mess. My lips were trembling. I looked like someone who just watched her life burn.
Because I had.
The elevator dinged.
Before I stepped inside, someone grabbed my arm.
Nate.
My older brother.
“Becca? Jesus Christ what happened to your feet?”
His voice cracked at the end, the way it did when he was two seconds from losing his mind. Nate hated scenes. He hated drama. He hated emotions that didn’t come with solutions.
But he loved me.
And the look on his face told me he already knew.
He looked past me, toward the suite at the end of the hall, and his entire expression changed. His jaw locked. His hands curled into fists.
“Nate don’t,” I whispered.
“What did he do?” His voice was low, dangerous. “Tell me right now. What the hell did he do to you?”
I shook my head. “I can’t Not here. Please.”
He stared at me for a long second. Then he nodded once, took off his jacket, and wrapped it around my shoulders like he was shielding me from the world.
“Come on,” he said softly. “Let’s get you out of here.”
He carried me literally carried me into the elevator. My face was pressed against his shoulder, and for the first time since the moment I opened that door upstairs, I let myself collapse.
Not loud. Not dramatic.
Just… breaking.
Quietly.
Like a woman who finally accepted that she wasted years trying to love someone who never saw her as anything but a temporary distraction.
When the elevator doors opened in the lobby, people stared.
Of course they did.
A barefoot bride with blood on her feet and a thousand-yard stare wasn’t exactly subtle.
Nate ignored every single one of them.
He walked straight out of the hotel like a man on a mission.
His Jeep was parked crookedly near the entrance. He must’ve sprinted inside the second he got my text earlier “Come now.”
He placed me in the passenger seat gently, like I was made of glass, then slammed the door so hard it rattled.
He stood outside the car for a moment, palms pressed against the roof, breathing hard.
I knew that stance.
He was trying not to go back upstairs and kill Stephen.
Finally, he slid into the driver’s seat.
“Start talking.”
I stared forward. “He was with someone.”
Nate didn’t blink. “Who.”
I swallowed. “Brielle.”
Silence.
Thick. Heavy. Deadly.
My brother didn’t explode the way I expected. He didn’t shout or curse or punch the steering wheel.
He just sat very still.
Too still.
“Nate say something.”
He inhaled sharply. “If I say something right now, I’ll drive this car back into the hotel and throw Stephen out the f*****g window.”
I closed my eyes.
He started the car but didn’t move. He just watched me.
“You’re not going back there,” he said quietly. “You understand me? You’re not stepping foot in that room again.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“Good.”
He pulled out of the parking lot, his jaw clenched so tight I could hear his teeth grind.
We drove in silence for a while. Streetlights blurred past us. The city felt too loud, too alive, too full of people who didn’t know my world had just ended.
I pressed my forehead against the window.
“I loved him, Nate.”
“I know.”
“I really thought he loved me too.”
He didn’t say anything.
He didn’t need to.
His silence was enough of an answer.
When we finally reached my apartment, Nate scooped me up again despite my protests. He didn’t put me down until we were inside, sitting on the couch.
He knelt in front of me, just like he did when we were kids and I scraped my knees on the playground.
“Show me your feet.”
I lifted them slowly.
He hissed at the sight.
“f*****g asshole,” he muttered as he gently picked out shards of glass. “I told you he wasn’t good enough. I told you the Hales were bad news.”
“Not all of them,” I whispered.
He froze. “What is that supposed to mean?”
I closed my eyes.
Maybe it was stupid. Insane, even. But at that moment, for some reason… Jace’s face flashed through my mind.
Stephen’s older brother.
Quiet. Controlled. Sharp-eyed.
I had met him a few times during dinner parties and engagement planning meetings. He barely spoke to anyone. But whenever I felt nervous or self-conscious, his gaze always found me as though he could read the panic under my smile.
He never commented on my weight.
Never made jokes.
Never made me feel like a charity case.
He just… saw me.
And it terrified me.
My brother snapped me out of it.
“What do you mean, not all of them?”
“Nothing. I didn’t mean anything.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Becca, if you’re defending that family”
“I’m not defending him,” I snapped. “I’m just… thinking.”
“Well stop. Think later. Right now, you need to rest.”
I wiped my face with the back of my hand. “I’m not staying here.”
Nate paused. “What?”
“I’m leaving.” My voice was quiet but firm. “I can’t stay in this city. I can’t breathe here. Everyone knows me. Everyone knows the wedding. Everyone will talk. I can’t do it. I won’t.”
“Where will you go?”
“I don’t know.”
But I knew exactly where I was going.
Far.
Far enough to disappear. Far enough to rebuild. Far enough to kill the version of me they broke so easily.
Nate leaned back on his heels. “If you leave, you won’t come back the same.”
“Good.”
He stared at me for a long time.
Then he nodded once.
“I’ll help you pack.”
By the next morning, my apartment was empty.
My clothes.
My books.
My makeup.
My entire life packed in two suitcases and a single carry-on.
Nate made me eat something. He didn’t speak much. He just hovered like a storm cloud with legs.
At the airport, right before I walked through security, he grabbed my wrist.
“One thing,” he said. “One rule.”
“What.”
“When you come back if you come back you better come back knowing your worth. Don’t let them break you again. Don’t let them define you.”
I nodded slowly.
“I won’t.”
He pulled me into a hug so tight it hurt.
“I’m proud of you,” he whispered. “Even if you’re hurting. Even if you’re angry. You’re still standing, Becca. That matters.”
I swallowed thickly. “I’ll text you when I land.”
“You better.”
I stepped back, lifted my suitcase handle, and walked toward security.
I didn’t look back.
I couldn’t.
If I did, I would break again.
So I kept walking through the airport, through the terminal, through the boarding gate until I was on the plane, strapped in, watching clouds swallow the city I once thought would be my forever.
As the plane lifted, a thought settled into my bones.
Not soft.
Not sad.
Sharp.
Cold.
Certain.
When I return, I won’t be the girl Stephen broke.
I’ll be the woman he won’t survive.
And somewhere in that same city, miles below me, the Hale brothers existed.
Stephen the man who destroyed me.
And Jace the man who would unknowingly become the centerpiece of my revenge.
The perfect storm was already forming.
They just didn’t know it yet.
- Writer
