Chapter 6

Elara's POV

“Elara!” Callum roared and shoved me hard.

I stumbled, crashed onto the floor, and the back of my head slammed into the table leg. Pain shot through me, and for a moment everything went dark.

Briar burst into tears beside him. “I only came in to help her pack. I just said I envied her because my husband never left anything behind for me. I asked if I could take a look, and she started cursing me, telling me to get out, calling me a mistress, saying I seduced you.”

Callum’s face twisted with disappointment and anger as he yelled at me. “Elara! She only wanted to look at your things. How could you treat her like that? If she likes something of yours, you should happily give it to her. She saved my life! And instead of gratitude, all you can think about is your filthy suspicions, trying to smear what I have with Briar?”

Briar cried harder, gasping for breath, and Callum’s expression softened instantly. “Don’t cry. It’s my fault. I haven’t made it up to you all these years. No wonder you’d envy someone else’s life. If you want anything, just take it. Whatever else you want, I’ll get it for you.”

Watching Callum dig through my box and hand over the last of my mother’s belongings to Briar, something inside me snapped.

I forced myself up from the floor and said with a shaking voice, “Callum, those are my mother’s keepsakes. Give her whatever you want, I don’t care. But don’t take those from me.”

The more I spoke, the harder it was to breathe. Tears streamed uncontrollably down my face as I begged, “I’m begging you, please.”

But Callum only looked at me with cold disdain. “All you care about is a few things left behind by the dead? You hit and insulted Briar, and you won’t even apologize? When did you become so selfish and vicious? Apologize to her!”

I knelt on the ground, bowing over and over until my forehead ached. My voice broke apart as I cried, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Please, please give me my mother’s things back.”

Briar softly murmured, “It was my fault. I shouldn’t have envied her for having a husband who loves her and so many nice things.”

Hearing that, the pain in Callum’s eyes almost overflowed.

He pried my fingers off the box one by one, which desperately clung to the only things I had left from my mother.

“Elara,” he said coldly, “when you do something wrong, you make up for it. These things, I’ve decided, they’ll all go to Briar as your apology.”

Then his eyes suddenly widened as he noticed the blood dripping down my forehead. “You’re bleeding? Did I push you too hard?”

He took a step toward me, reaching out as if to help, but Briar immediately collapsed against him. “It hurts, Callum, my stomach. When she pushed me earlier, I think I hit the baby.”

Callum’s face drained of color. In an instant, he scooped her into his arms and rushed out.

Before leaving, he threw me one last sentence. “Elara, hold on for a bit. I’ll take Briar to the hospital and come right back to bandage your wound.”

I watched them disappear down the hallway.

Slowly, I wiped away my tears and the blood on my face.

Then I closed my suitcase, set the signed divorce papers neatly on the table, and picked up my travel documents. Without looking back, I walked toward the train station.