Chapter 11

NATALIE’S POV

I closed my eyes and stepped closer, barely processing Lucas’s snarling words. Whatever tantrum he was throwing—I didn’t have the energy. Not after today. Not after everything. I just needed to pack and leave.

“Natalie!” he barked, storming toward me as I brushed past him towards where a new suitcase laid on our former bed.

I ignored him. My hands trembled as I shoved clothes into the half-zipped suitcase. Becks was outside waiting in her car for me, I didn’t have time for this chaos.

He grabbed my arm without warning and spun me around.

“What the hell is wrong with you?!” I snapped, ripping free. My chest heaved, rage and exhaustion colliding.

“I should be asking you that!” he shouted, wild-eyed, hair a mess, shirt half-untucked like he’d been pacing in circles, unraveling.

A direct contrast on how I had left him a few hours ago.

“You humiliate me in front of my family and suddenly you’re packing like a thief in the night? You think you can just run off without explaining—this?” He flung his phone onto the bed. The screen lit up with an email… a receipt.

I hesitated, my eyes narrowing at the screen as I slowly picked it up.

Valen Gravestone.

At first I frowned but then as I looked closely, I gasped softly.

Payment for Mrs. Davis’s hospital bills.

My breath hitched and I tried to hide it from Lucas but I didn’t really need to, he was too busy with his raging emotions.

“Because I hurt your feelings a little, you went out and—what? Sold yourself to the first man with a black card?” His voice was venom, loud and unforgiving. “And look at that! He just happens to offer you a job right after. Wow. Bravo.”

He clapped mockingly and I flinched.

“You always had a thing for theatrics. You’ve outdone yourself this time. Tell me, how’d you seduce Gravestone? Whispered sob stories in his ear? Maybe the one from college or did you just bend over his desk?”

I said nothing. My silence only fueling him.

“I mean, seriously, Natalie. You? And Valen? Did you even wait till we were over, or were you whoring around before the breakup?”

The words sliced through me. My body stiffened, but my face stayed stone cold.

“How did you get this receipt?” I asked, my voice icy. “I never used your account. Never touched company money. So how the hell do you have this?”

Lucas lets out a dry laugh. “That’s what you’re asking me? Not why your boss is paying your bills?”

“I said—how did you get it?” I stepped forward, holding the phone like a weapon. “You didn’t even know Mrs. Davis existed a week ago.”

My thoughts were spiraling on the realization that perhaps Lucas was even more dangerous than I ever allowed myself to see.

“That’s not the point,” he growled.

“Then maybe there is no point.” I threw the phone onto the bed and resumed packing but he stepped in front of me.

“Or maybe you’re just a filthy whore.”

I froze.

The air turned to lead in my lungs. Slowly, I turned back to him.

“What did you just say?”

“You fucking heard me,” he sneered. “Spreading your legs for Gravestone. That’s your real skill set, isn’t it? Screwing your way to the top.”

My hands curled into fists.

How dare he?

“Have you always been this disgusting,” I hissed, “or did I just finally open my damn eyes?”

“Oh, please,” he scoffed. “You think you’re the victim? I knew what you were from the beginning.” He yelled but my own eyes turned to slits.

He started pacing, a twisted grin on his lips.

“All those stories you told me—about your mother, Vanessa, your sad little victim complex… You loved playing the martyr. But I always saw through you.”

“Right,” I said bitterly, shoving shoes into the bag. “Because my trauma was just too inconvenient for you to care.”

“Because it was fake!” he shouted. “You were always the problem. Not your family. Not your past. You. Always you.”

I stopped moving instantly.

“And you know what?” he continued. “I backed them up, your family. Every time they shut you out? Every time they denied you something? I agreed with them. Because you never deserved it.”

He was unraveling now, every word more vicious than the last.

“You were always defective. Always begging for validation. A parasite with a pretty face.”

I turned slowly, the suitcase forgotten.

“You’re insane.” I tried to stop my voice from trembling with rage and anguish.

“I’m honest,” he snapped. “You know why people left you? Because they saw you for what you are. Even Mrs. Davis—don’t pretend she’s in that hospital for anything other than you.” I gasped in horror as he looked at me crazed , the grin stretching even wide as he laughed “oh? You thought it was a secret. The reason why Mrs Davis is confined to a bed…Everything you touch turns to shit.”

I couldn’t breathe.

He stepped closer, eyes cold and cruel.

“And you? Using sex to get grades, to get jobs, to get sympathy. When the fucking didn’t work, you tried tears. And now? You’re still failing. Alone. Unwanted. A bottom-feeder clinging to scraps.”

My vision blurred but Not from tears.

From rage.

I didn’t think. I struck.

My palm met his cheek with a thunderous crack, knocking him back. He stumbled, crashing into a chair, a picture frame shattering on the floor.

He hissed, clutching his eye.

I stood there, panting, hand still raised.

The silence between us buzzed with tension. My blood roared in my ears. I had only ever hit someone once before and I never wanted to. But right now? I wanted to do it again.

And again.

He laughed. A sick, slow, crumbling sound.

I didn’t laugh back.

Tears welled in my eyes, but I didn’t let them fall.

I stared at the man who once said he loved me—and wondered if he ever had at all.

How did I get here?

How did I ever love that?