When the Glass Breaks

CHAPTER 4

I stood across Ethan’s office from him, saying nothing.

The silence stretched between us like a wire pulled taut.

In my last life, by this moment, my heart had already been completely his. I used to look at him like he was the only man in the world.

But this time, something inside me stayed still. Cold. Watching.

Ethan leaned back against his desk, studying me with narrowed eyes. Then his gaze slowly traveled down my body. His jaw tightened.

“Didn’t you say,” he said slowly, irritation creeping into his voice, “that you wouldn’t dress like this again?”

I didn’t answer.

Half of me wanted to grab the heavy paperweight on his desk and smash it against his skull.

The other half…

Wanted to kiss him.

Kiss him?

Was I insane?

When I didn’t respond, Ethan pushed off the desk and began walking toward me. Each step was slow. Controlled. Predatory.

He stopped right in front of me, too close.

Before I could react, his arms slid around my waist and pulled me against him.

The warmth of his body hit me like a shock.

He lowered his head near my ear, his voice dropping to that low whisper that once made my knees weak.

“You dressed like this again because I haven’t been paying attention to you, right?”

His breath brushed my skin.

“I’m sorry, Amanda.”

His hand moved slowly along my back.

“I’ll give you more attention from now on.”

For a second, the room spun.

The old me would have melted instantly.

I stayed silent.

And that was the wrong answer.

CRASH.

The ceramic plant beside my head exploded against the wall.

I screamed.

Ethan’s hand was still raised.

“I’m apologizing to you, Amanda,” he snapped. “And the least you can do is look at me!”

The office felt smaller.

This was how it started. Not with love. With fear.

Another crash. Papers scattered. My chest tightened.

“I’m sorry!” I blurted out.

Ethan’s smile curved slowly.

“Good girl,” he said, venomous, satisfied.

“Now,” he continued, “go change into something decent. Titan Group won’t wait.”

The moment the bathroom door clicked shut, I collapsed against the sink.

Tears ran down my face. My hands shook so badly I could barely hold the edge of the porcelain. The echo of the crash was still in my ears. The word *sorry* was still warm on my lips.

But underneath the shame, underneath all of it, was something I hated even more.

I had felt his arms around me.

And part of me had wanted to stay there.

*You are pathetic*, I told myself. *You know what he is. You watched him destroy everything. And you still*

I forced myself to look up at the mirror.

And my reflection was already looking at me.

Not in the mirror.

At *me.*

My breath died in my throat.

I raised my hand slowly. My reflection raised its hand but late. Half a second behind. Like it had watched me move and then decided to bother copying.

My stomach dropped to the floor.

I tried again.

Same thing. The same deliberate delay. The same feeling that it was choosing.

"No." The word fell out of me. Small and broken. "No, no."

"You let him touch you."

The voice cracked through the room like a slap.

My voice. Exactly mine. But stripped of every soft thing. No warmth, no hesitation, nothing. Just the blade of it.

I screamed.

I threw myself backward and hit the wall so hard the air punched out of my lungs. I pressed flat against it, fingers splayed against the tiles, as far from the mirror as the tiny bathroom would allow.

My reflection had not moved.

It stood at the sink with my hands on the porcelain, looking across the room at me with my own face. And absolutely nothing behind its eyes that looked like mercy.

"He grabbed you," it said. "He put his mouth on you. And your body went soft." Its head tilted, slowly, too slowly. "Even now. Even after everything he did to you. Even after you watched them lower your parents into the ground while he stood next to you pretending to grieve." Its voice dropped lower. "You still went soft for him."

"Stop." My voice was shaking apart. "Stop, please."

"You love him." It said it like an accusation. Like something disgusting. "That is what this is. That is what it has always been. Not just fear. Love. You loved him so much you handed him the knife and stood still while he used it." Its eyes did not blink. "You kept giving him chances. Every time he hurt you, you found a reason. Every time he lied, you found an excuse. You loved him more than you loved yourself." A pause that felt like a hand around my throat. "More than you loved *them.*"

"Don't." The word tore out of me. "Don't you dare."

"Your mother." Flat. Merciless. "Your father." It let those words sit. Let them land the way they were meant to. "Dead. Because you loved a man who was running a bet on how long it would take to break you."

A sound came out of me that didn't feel human.

I slid down the wall, knees hitting the tiles hard, arms wrapped around myself, whole body shaking. My face was wet. I couldn't catch a single breath.

The reflection crouched.

Same position. Arms loose at its sides rather than wrapped around its knees the way mine were. Its back was straight. Its face was dry.

It looked at me the way you look at something you have run out of patience for.

"Get up," it said.

"I can't."

"Get. Up."

"I can't, I can't, I"

"Then I will."

Everything went still.

My own voice. Those three words. Said so simply. So certainly.

I looked up at it through blurred eyes.

"What?" I whispered.

"You heard me." It rose to its feet slowly. It straightened to its full height and looked down at me still crumpled on the floor and there was nothing kind in its face. Nothing patient. Nothing gentle. "You think I have been sitting in here all these years waiting for you to cry on a bathroom floor? You think I survived everything he did to us just to watch you go soft the moment he breathes near you?"

"I'm trying."

"You are not trying." Its voice was cold and sharp and furious. "You are *feeling.* You are standing in a burning house crying about how warm the fire is." It took a step toward the glass from its side and the air in the room seemed to drop ten degrees. "You came back here with eight years of knowing what he is. You have the chance to protect them. To save them. To burn everything he built to the ground before he even lays a single stone of it." Its eyes burned into mine. "And you are on the floor. Because he *touched* you."

"I love him." I said it out loud for the first time. It tasted horrible. "I still love him. I don't know how to make it stop."

"I don't care." No hesitation. Not even a breath. "Love him. Fine. Love him while you destroy him. Love him while you take everything from him the way he took everything from us." It pressed closer to its side of the glass. "But do not let it make you *small.* Not again. Not here. Not when they are still alive."

My mother's face flashed through my mind. Warm eyes. Tired smile. The smell of her kitchen in the morning.

My father crouching in front of me asking *are you alright?*

The coffins.

The dirt.

Ethan's hand on my back at the funeral.

Something lurched violently in my chest.

"Listen to me." The reflection's voice came down lower. Quieter. Which was somehow the most frightening thing it had done yet. "I have been locked in here a long time. I have watched you shrink. I have watched you apologise. I have watched you look at that man like he is something worth saving." Its jaw tightened. "I am *done* watching."

"What does that mean?" I breathed.

"It means I will not let them die twice." Its eyes held mine and did not waver. "If you will not do what needs to be done, if you keep melting every time he comes close, I will stop waiting for you to decide." It tilted its head. "I will do it myself."

The cold in the room pressed against my skin like hands.

"You can't."

"I already almost did." Its eyes dropped pointedly to where my hands had shoved Ethan backward. Where my body had moved without me deciding. "Did you think that was you?"

My blood went cold.

"The next time," it said softly, "I might not give it back."

Silence.

I was shaking from my hands to my feet. My back was against the wall and the tiles were ice through my clothes and I could not look away from those eyes. My eyes. Burning with everything I had spent eight years trying to bury.

"I don't want you to take over," I whispered.

"Then *stand up.*" No sympathy. None. "Stand up and remember that you are not here because fate felt sorry for you. You are here because they deserve to live. Because *we* deserve to live." Something shifted in its expression. Not softness exactly, but the edge of something raw underneath all that fury. "You can love him and still destroy him. Women have done harder things." Its voice dropped to almost nothing. "But you cannot love him and stay on the floor. I will not allow it."

My hands found the tiles.

Cold. Solid. Real.

I pressed down.

My arms shook. My knees screamed. I pushed myself up inch by inch until I was standing. Unsteady, hollowed out, face still wet.

But standing.

In the mirror, my reflection rose with me.

In perfect time now. No delay. No choosing.

It looked at me for a long moment.

And then it said, very quietly, almost against its will:

"Good."

But its eyes said something else entirely.

*Don't test me again.*

I pressed my trembling hand flat against the glass. Cold and solid and real beneath my palm.

I looked at my reflection, really looked, for the first time in eight years.

Same face.

Same eyes.

But she had never been soft. Not once. Not for anyone.

I pulled my hand away.

And reached for the door.