As Avery’s furious footsteps faded down the hall, silence returned to the hospital room. Elena leaned back against the pillows, her body trembling, her heart heavy with sorrow.
Her thoughts drifted—not to Damien, not to Avery, not even to the cruel divorce papers—but to the life she had lived before ever stepping into the Salvatore villa. To the beginning of her story, where all her pain had quietly taken root.
She had grown up in an orphanage. A simple, modest place where laughter echoed through the hallways and warmth was found not in riches, but in the love of one woman—the matron. The matron wasn’t her mother, but to little Elena, she was everything. She wiped Elena’s tears, braided her hair, tucked her into bed when nightmares came, and always reminded her, "You are precious, my lit
