Traces in Snow When Strangers Meet Again

"Raymond Sanchez, unless you make Bella Vance suffer so much she'd rather be dead, there is no future for us."

Elisa Long left those words behind like a curse before fleeing the country.

And I—blind, trusting fool that I was—became the weapon Raymond used to win back his beauty's heart.

He drew me in. Made me fall desperately, hopelessly in love. Then he dismantled me, piece by piece. Again and again, he orchestrated my ruin, painting me as a slut the world could spit on, driving me to the edge of madness until I was nothing more than a hollow shell drowning in clinical depression.