"Otis, please. Just let me go."

He didn't agree.

He just watched me fall apart with that detached coldness, then dropped a single line before walking away.

"Debbie."

"You're not thinking about yourself."

"But what about your mother?"

Right.

My mother was still in the ICU.

The entire medical team—Otis had personally arranged for them to care for her. Even if only for Mom's sake, I had to endure. I could only endure.

So I kept swallowing it all, right up until today.

I stared at my phone, at the messages Jemima kept sending. I tapped on the latest video.

Otis was clearly drunk, holding Jemima close as he spoke.

"Debbie won't divorce me."

"Even if she doesn't stay for me—"

"—she'll stay for her mother. Because of her mother. No matter how far I push her, she can only take it."

A dull ache bloomed in my chest. I'd long accepted that Otis and I could never go back to what we were. But hearing him weaponize my weakness so casually—it still cut deep.

I listened as Jemima asked him why.

He just gave a low laugh.

"There's a secret."

"Something Debbie never knew."

"See, Debbie—" He beckoned with one finger, and Jemima leaned in. "Her mother always had a chance at recovery. Eighty percent success rate if she went overseas for treatment. But I never agreed to it."

"And I made sure no one told her."

Ice crawled up my spine.

My hands were shaking so badly I nearly dropped the phone. His voice, cold and flat, kept drilling into my ears.

"I blocked every piece of information. Made sure Debbie never found out."

"Because I needed her."

"To never be able to leave me."

"Debbie, you see—"

The rest—

I couldn't hear anymore. Tears blurred everything. I clamped a hand over my mouth, choking on silent sobs as the memories crashed over me.

Mom, trying to scrape together my college tuition, had followed the village women into the mountains to gather herbs. She'd fallen. And she'd never woken up.

So many years now.

She'd always been the wound I carried.

I still remembered how I'd nearly destroyed myself back then.

Then Otis appeared.

The untouchable young heir, standing in front of me, pulling me into his arms so tight it hurt.

"Don't be scared, Debbie."

"You have me. You don't have to be afraid of anything."

Otis had held my broken pieces together. My collapse. My entire life. He'd brought in the best medical team for my mother. Paid my tuition.

It was Otis.

It was always Otis.

He'd made me who I became.

And it was also Otis—