After His Obsession Broke Me, I Married My Light

Chapter 2

By the time I rushed from the bar to the hospital, Jude was clutching my mother's hand, tears streaming uncontrollably down his face.

"Raven... Mom... she's already gone."

When I didn't respond for a long while, Jude pulled me tightly into his arms. "It's okay. I'll always be by your side. I'll always stay with you."

After my mother fell into a vegetative state, Jude became her attending physician. During the time when my hatred for Damian burned its fiercest, he was the one who brought me warmth. Once I had sent Damian to prison, I accepted Jude's proposal, ready to begin a new life.

But all of that was shattered when Damian got out early.

Damian humiliated me for three days and three nights. Jude was beaten to within an inch of his life, his face nearly ruined. When I went to prison, I asked Jude to break up with me. Yet he still came to visit me every single day, insisting he would marry me.

After my release, knowing my mother was still under Damian's watch, we could only quietly get our marriage license.

"Raven, let's leave. Let's leave this place of heartbreak. Mom is gone. Your last tie here is gone. Let's go somewhere no one knows us and start over."

Tears slid slowly down my cheeks. After a long pause, I spoke, my voice thick with tears. "Alright. Let's leave."

Jude was overwhelmed with emotion. He turned and left to handle my mother's final arrangements. Back when I was released, Jude had wanted to take me abroad. It was only because of my mother that I had obediently stayed under Damian's thumb for three years.

Now, everything deserved to come to a close.

"Who was that man who just had his arms around you?"

Damian's voice came from behind me, chilling and dark.

My heart jolted, but I quickly steadied myself. Back when Jude was severely injured, he'd had reconstructive surgery. Damian hadn't recognized him.

With his head wrapped in thick gauze, Damian advanced toward me step by step. Then he seized my wrist in a crushing grip.

"Let me tell you something, Raven. Even if I don't want you anymore, I will never allow anyone else to have you! Next time I see that, I won't hesitate to use your mother's life as a warning!"

"Any man who gets close to you—I'll make sure he dies a miserable death! Just like your ex!"

The veins bulged on Damian's forehead, his eyes blazing red as he stared at me.

I laughed coldly inside. Damian, I stopped wanting you long ago. My mother is gone. The only leverage you had over me is gone too.

Swallowing down my emotions, unwilling to stir up trouble right before leaving, I spoke flatly. "Fine. I understand."

Then I turned and walked away without looking back.

Damian felt a faint, nagging sense that something was off.

Through the glass window, he stared at my mother lying still in the hospital bed, his brow furrowing deeply. Unconsciously, his hand reached to push open the door.

"Damian, how could you just leave on your own? The doctor said you need to rest. You can't be exposed to any drafts."

Just then, Nora hurried over.

Damian's grip on the door handle loosened.

Seeing my mother on the hospital bed, Nora's curiosity was piqued. "Who is that?"

Damian collected every trace of emotion, his voice flat as he replied. "No one important. Just an enemy of mine."

When I was ten, my parents brought home a fifteen-year-old Damian and told me to call him Uncle. For eight full years after that, my eyes never left him. Until the day of my eighteenth birthday, when I confessed my feelings.

Damian's gaze turned to ice in an instant. "Raven, you are not worthy of loving me!"

In utter disbelief, I was sent to a psychiatric hospital. A month later, my father jumped to his death. My mother lost her sanity. And Hazelwood Group—my family's company—fell entirely under Damian's control.

Only then did I understand how foolish I had been. What stood between Damian and me was never ethics or propriety. It was a blood feud.