He Broke My Heart, I’ll Break His

Chapter 6

Vespera froze for a long moment before his words finally sank in.

'Go back to Iceland?

What was his excuse this time?

Was it because she refused to hand over her life's work to Genevieve? Or because she had discovered his secret that his legs were perfectly fine?

Vespera clenched her fists so tight her nails dug deep into her palms.

"I won't go."

Cassian's face went ice-cold in an instant. "Vespera Kane!"

She didn't flinch, nor did she look away. She met his icy, furious glare head-on and repeated, sharp and steady, "I won't go."

The two of them locked in a silent standoff, the tension between them thick enough to cut with a knife.

After what felt like an eternity, Cassian spoke, his voice sharp and unyielding. "You don't get a choice." Then he turned and wheeled away.

The wheels of his chair crunched over the loose gravel of the driveway, and every turn of the rubber felt like it was rolling right over her heart, squeezing it until it ached.

She stared at his retreating back, her eyes stinging. The secret she had buried deep in her chest for two years almost burst out of her throat right then and there...

They had once had a child.

No one else had ever known about that little life. It was gone, silent and unacknowledged, lost in the car crash two years ago before anyone even discovered it existed.

Vespera's chest tightened as she recalled the soul-crushing agony she had felt when the doctor delivered the news, and the two years of brutal self-torment and grief she had dragged herself through in Iceland.

She had once been foolish enough to think Cassian would care.

Looking back now, that version of herself was so naive it was almost laughable.

A dull, familiar throbbing flared up in her lower abdomen, just as it had two years ago in the aftermath of the collision.

She took a few long, deep breaths, forcing the phantom pain back down until it faded to a bearable ache.

"Oh, look who decided to show up! Why are you loitering outside, Second Sister? Come on in, welcome home, ha ha."

A teenage boy's sneering voice cut through her thoughts from right behind her.

Vespera turned around to see Tristan standing there.

The eighteen-year-old was tall and lanky, but thanks to their parents' constant spoiling, he slouched like a reckless delinquent with zero regard for decorum.

Vespera didn't bother wasting her breath on him, but she couldn't pretend she hadn't heard him either. She turned and walked toward the entrance of the Kane manor.

As they brushed past each other, Tristan suddenly stuck his foot out, trying to trip her.

She glanced down at his outstretched leg, not bothering to step around it. Instead, she drove her heel down hard right onto the top of his shoe!

"Ah!"

Tristan hopped up and down on one foot, his previously smug, mocking expression twisting into pure agony. "Vespera, are you insane? Are you trying to cripple me?!"

He had been like this his whole life... calling her Second Sister, but jumping at every chance to humiliate her.

"If you end up crippled, you'll have earned it."

This time, Vespera didn't let him off easy like she always had before.

He had never seen her stand up to him like that. Tristan froze, totally stunned.

He only snapped out of it when Mortimer and Helena came rushing out of the house in a panic. "Tristan, what's wrong?!"

Tristan immediately pointed an accusing finger at Vespera, wailing, "She stomped on me! Mom, look, my foot is already swelling up!"

Helena didn't even glance at his foot. She spun around instantly, snapping at Vespera viciously. "Vespera Kane, how dare you bully your brother the second you step back into this house? Apologize to him right now!"

Vespera stared at the furious, immaculately dressed woman in front of her, and for the life of her, she couldn't wrap her head around it.

She was Helena's own daughter too, carried for nine full months and birthed by her. Why was her mother so dead-set on favoring Tristan and Seraphina, treating Vespera like she didn't even exist?

As those thoughts swirled in her head, she drifted back to the baby she had lost with Cassian.

If the child had survived, if she had been given the chance to bring that baby into the world, she would have moved heaven and earth to protect it from suffering even a single slight, from being hurt by anyone at all.

Vespera was completely lost in her own grief.

Helena, furious at being ignored, raised her voice even sharper, "Vespera, I am talking to you! Are you deaf?!"

Vespera snapped back to the present, her tone icy, "Apologize? Not in a million years."

Helena froze on the spot.

She could not comprehend why Vespera, the quiet doormat who used to let everyone push her around without fighting back, had suddenly turned so sharp and combative.

Just then, Mortimer, who had stayed silent up to that point, finally spoke up, "You ungrateful brat! How dare you talk to your mother like that?!"

He snarled the words as he drew back his hand, ready to slap Vespera hard across the face.

Right at that second, Seraphina hurried over from the study, calling out, "Dad, everyone, look at this!" Her expression was strained, and the way she looked at Vespera held a strange, tense edge.

Vespera had no clue what was going on, but an uneasy knot tightened in her stomach out of nowhere.

Before she could figure out what was happening, Tristan held up his phone and yelled out in shock, "You... you and Cassian Thorne were sleeping together?!"