Chapter 77

Chapter 77: 

Sara's Point of View

I couldn't breathe. My chest hurt. My hands shook. The fancy room around me felt too small, like the walls were closing in. The only sound was that stupid old clock going tick-tick-tick on the fireplace, like everything was normal. But nothing was normal anymore. Nothing.

I grabbed the chair next to me so hard my knuckles turned white. The soft velvet felt wrong under my fingers. Everything felt wrong.

I caught sight of myself in the big mirror on the wall and stopped dead. I didn't even look like me anymore. My hair was all messed up, mascara running down my cheeks, lipstick smeared. I looked crazy. Really crazy. Like one of those women in the movies right before they completely lose it.

Maybe I was losing it.

" This was supposed to be easy!" I screamed so loud my throat hurt. "We had a plan, Mom! A perfect plan! And now look at us!" I grabbed the crystal vase from the table the one Dad gave mom on his last anniversary before everything fell apart and threw it as hard as I could. It hit the wall and exploded into a million pieces. Just like my life.

Mom didn't even flinch. She just sat there in her perfect designer gown with her perfect hair and her blood-red lips, looking like she was at some fancy tea party instead of watching her daughter fall apart.

" Sara," she said my name like she was talking to a kid throwing a tantrum, "breaking things won't fix anything." She took a sip of her wine, perfect red lipstick not even smudging the glass. "You're embarrassing yourself."

Something snapped inside me. I spun around so fast I almost fell over, my heel crunching on the broken crystal. "Embarrassing myself? Are you kidding me?" The words just poured out, hot and angry like I was throwing up fire. "Eva's still here, Mom! After everything we did, everything! We made everyone hate her. We made her loose everything. We sent her to freaking prison! And she's still standing! She's still fighting! She's still breathing!"

I had to stop to catch my breath. Just saying her name made me want to break more things. "And Max..." My voice cracked on his name. The memory hit me like a punch to the gut seeing him the other day Eva appeared at the party after faking her death, the way he looked at her. "He's slipping away from me. You should see how he looks at her, Mom. Like she's... like she's everything. Like she's the sun and moon and stars all wrapped up in one perfect package. He used to look at me like that. Remember? He used to love me like that!"

My voice got higher and higher until it broke. I wrapped my arms around myself tight, trying to hold all the broken pieces together. "I'm losing him, Mom! Everything we worked for, all our plans, it's all falling apart! Years of planning, gone! Just... gone!"

Mom's perfect face finally changed. Something dark and dangerous flashed in her eyes. "Sit. Down." Each word was sharp as a knife.

"No!" I couldn't sit. I couldn't stay still. I started pacing back and forth, back and forth, like a tiger in a cage. My heels dug into Dad's expensive carpet, leaving marks Mom'd probably yell at me about later. I didn't care. I couldn't care. If I stopped moving, I'd explode.

I hit the wall. Hard. Again. And again. And again. The pain in my hand felt good. Real. Better than the pain eating me up inside. Better than remembering how Max used to hold me, used to whisper he loved me, used to promise we'd be together forever.

"Why won't she just die?" The words came out in a whisper, but they felt like they were ripping my throat open. I looked down at my hands there was blood where my nails had cut into my palms. "The prison fire was perfect, Mom. Perfect! We planned every single detail. The timing. The locked doors. Everything! She should be dead! She should be ashes! Why is she still breathing while I'm dying inside?"

Mom's high heels clicked on the floor as she walked over to me. Click. Click. Click. Like a countdown to something terrible. She always walked like that like a queen. Like someone who knew they could destroy you with a single word.

"Look at me," she ordered.

I stared at the wall instead. The fancy wallpaper got all blurry as tears filled my eyes. I blinked hard. Sara Brown doesn't cry. That's what Mom always taught me. Crying is for weak people. We're not weak.

"Look. At. Me." Mom's voice got even scarier, like ice about to crack under your feet.

I finally turned around. Her hands shot out and grabbed my shoulders, her red nails digging in so hard I knew there'd be marks. "Enough!" She shook me a little, like she used to when I was small and wouldn't listen. "Crying about it won't change anything. It won't make Max come running back. It won't make Eva disappear."

"But she's...."

"Yes, she's still alive. That's... unfortunate." Her eyes locked onto mine, cold and hard as diamonds. "But it's not the end of everything. Unless you make it the end by falling apart like this."

I laughed, but it came out sounding wrong. Crazy. "Not the end? Are you blind? She's winning, Mom! Max still loves her! All our plans failed! The lies we told everyone about her ever since she was a kid, the fake evidence, getting her sent to prison, the fire, none of it worked! She's like... like a cockroach! She just won't die!"

"Obviously," Mom said, squeezing my shoulders harder until I gasped in pain, "we haven't tried hard enough. If we had, Eva would be gone. If we had, Max would be yours. If we had, we wouldn't be standing here having this pathetic conversation."

Her words hit me like a slap. I tried to step back, but she held on tight.

"Want to know why you keep failing, Sara?" Her voice got real quiet, like when she used to tell me secrets when I was little. "Want to know why Eva keeps winning?"

I swallowed hard. My mouth tasted like blood must've bit my lip at some point. "Why?"

"Because you're weak. You let your feelings control you. You act without thinking. You're all emotion, no brains. All fire, no focus." Her lip curled up like she smelled something bad. "Eva knows exactly what buttons to push to make you crazy, and you fall for it every single time. That's why we're here. That's why she's still alive. That's why Max is slipping away."

The truth hurt worse than any hit. Mom was right. She was always right. My temper always messed everything up. It burned too hot, destroyed too much. It's why Max started pulling away in the first place, wasn't it? Those fights we had, the times I lost control...

"So what do we do?" I heard myself ask in a tiny voice, like when I was five and needed Mom to fix my broken toys. "She just... won't break. Nothing we do breaks her. How do we stop her? How do we win?"

Mom's smile changed then, turned into something that would give normal people nightmares. But I wasn't normal people. I was her daughter. "We stop playing nice," she said, letting go of my shoulders to fix my messy hair. "We stop reacting to her moves and start making our own. We change the rules of the game."

She stepped back, looking at me like I was a puzzle she needed to solve. "Everyone has something that'll break them, baby girl. We just haven't found Eva's weak spot yet. But we will. And when we do..." She smiled again, that smile that meant someone was about to get destroyed. "When we do, she won't just break. She'll shatter. Into so many pieces that even precious Josh Sinclair won't be able to save her."

Hope flared up in my chest, but the doubts came rushing in right after. Like poison spreading through my blood. "What if we can't find it? What if she's too strong? What if...."

"Stop!" Mom's voice cracked like a whip. I jumped. "We will find it. And when we do, it'll make everything else we've done look like child's play."

The way she said it made my skin crawl. I'd seen that look before. Right before she destroyed Dad's mistress so completely the woman had to leave the country. Right before she made sure that woman lost everything her job, her friends, her family. Last I heard, she was in some mental hospital somewhere, still too scared to come back.

"But what about Max?" The question burned in my throat like acid. It's the one thing I couldn't stop thinking about, the thing that kept me up at night. "What if he really loves her? What if he picks her? What if all those stupid romance novels Eva reads are right and love really does conquer all?"

Mom's eyes went dark, like storm clouds rolling in. "Max is just a tool, Sara. A pretty toy we're using to get what we want. If he becomes a problem..." She let the words hang in the air for a second. "Well, accidents happen all the time, don't they?"

The casual way she talked about hurting Max made my stomach turn. Even after everything, the thought of him getting hurt made something deep inside me scream. But I pushed that feeling down deep, buried it with all the other feelings I couldn't deal with.

I fell into the nearest chair, suddenly too tired to stand. Mom watched me like a hawk studying its prey while she talked.

"We've come too far to give up now," she said, voice quiet but full of poison. "Eva might've survived the fire, but what's coming next? She'll never see it coming. This time, we won't just take Max. We won't just take her freedom. We'll take everything. Her hope. Her fight. Her reason to keep breathing."

For the first time in what felt like forever, I felt myself smile. Eva might've escaped the fire, but nobody could run forever. Nobody.

"This isn't over," I whispered, running my finger through the blood on my palm where my nails cut in.

Mom smiled back, cold and promising pain. "No, baby girl. We're just getting started. And this time..." She picked up a piece of the broken vase, turning it so it caught the light just right. "This time, we'll make sure she wishes that fire had killed her."

But way down deep inside, in a place I tried not to look at, the doubts kept growing. Like weeds you can't kill. What if Max really did love Eva more than me? What if true love really was stronger than hate? What if we were just wasting our time?

I shoved those thoughts away, buried them under all my anger and hate. Max would wake up eventually. He had to. And when he did, Eva would be nothing but a bad memory. Just another story about what happens when you try to take what belongs to me.

Sitting there with Mom, starting to plan our next move, I made myself a promise. This war wasn't over. Eva thought those divorce papers meant she won? She thought she was finally free? She had no idea what was coming.

She thought she'd survived the worst we could do? She was about to learn how wrong she was.

As long as my heart was beating, she wouldn't win.

She couldn't.

Because this time, I wouldn't stop until she was completely destroyed. Not just her life, her soul. I would take everything from her, piece by little piece, until she begged for the mercy of that prison fire.

And then? Then I'd make her wish she'd never even heard the name Max Graves.

Mom was right. The real game was just starting.

And this time, no more playing nice.

This time, Eva will learn what true destruction looked like.

And Max? Well, if he couldn't love me willingly... Then he is good as dead..

I looked at Mom, saw my own darkness reflected in her eyes, and knew we were thinking the same thing.

Sometimes love needs a little... push.

I smiled again, feeling calmer now. More focused. 

Eva thought she knew pain? She thought she knew suffering?

She hadn't seen anything yet.

The real nightmare was just beginning.

And this time, there would be no happy ending.

Not for her.

Never for her.