“I love you,” I whispered as Louis planted a kiss on my forehead.

He rested his forehead on mine and smiled. “I love you too. You are my world.”

The memory dissolved, pulling me back to the present and its harsh reality.

Louis loomed over me, his face twisted with undiluted loathing. His azure eyes bored into mine as he sneered. “Fucking bitch,” he spat.

It felt like being slapped repeatedly. I looked up at him from my wheelchair, unable to rise and cradle his face like I used to, to bring him back to me, to the person who showered me with love just yesterday afternoon.

“Answer me!” he growled, taking a step closer.

It all felt like a nightmare, yet it was real. My tears slid down my burnt cheek, the salt stinging the wound. “Louis…” I mumbled, my voice breaking. “I don’t know what you are talking about,” I insisted.

But my words only agitated him more. “Jennie told me you would deny it.”

My eyes widened at the mention of my bully, who had tormented me throughout school. What had Jenny told Louis to make him believe her?

“She was right about you. You are nothing but a cheap gold digger,” he continued, each word a bullet to my heart.

“I am as clueless as you are!” I tried to tell him, but the fire had left my throat sore. First, the fire that almost killed my family, then my mother’s and brother’s sudden disappearance from the hospital, and now Louis’s accusation. Each time I believed things couldn’t get worse, they did.

“You helped your mother elope with my father,” he said through gritted teeth, “and then you deny it to my fucking face!” he yelled.

I quivered in my wheelchair. I loved Louis more than I could ever love myself, but I wanted nothing more than to turn around and run. He did not look like the man I loved. He looked like a stranger.

“It’s your fault my mother is dying,” he pointed an accusatory finger at me.

I couldn’t take it anymore. It was all too much. “Louis, look at me!” I screamed, my tears a salt stream down my flushed and wounded face. “What do you see? I am injured, I almost died! I am in no condition to conspire with my mother. I had nothing to do with them eloping.”

Louis let out a bone-chilling laugh, but it lacked joy. It was an empty sound. “You think you’re the victim in this? You have always been a fucking witch, and now your exterior finally matches your interior.”

His expression remained cold and unforgiving in the face of my pain. I would never get through to him. He had completely turned his back on me.

“You are going to have to talk at some point. You can’t keep trying to protect your mother. I’ll make sure of it. You thought your life was hell before? Just wait and see what happens when you make me an enemy.” His voice was low and filled with the promise of his threat. “I will make you wish for death.”

The door opened suddenly, and in stepped someone who made my blood run cold.

“Louis!” Jennie said gleefully before jumping to hug him.

My stomach turned at the sight before me.

Jennie looked up at Louis. “Did she confess?” she asked.

“No,” he replied.

Jennie turned her villainous dark eyes on me, making me squirm in my wheelchair. “Then it seems she will need a little push,” she said with a sinister glint in her eyes.

A chill ran down my spine. “You believe her words over mine?” I couldn’t quite wrap my mind around it. Just a few months ago, Louis had rejected Jenny in front of everyone and chosen me instead.

“Be careful how you speak about my fiancée,” Louis murmured.

My heart dropped at his words. The promise ring he had given me suddenly felt like it was throbbing. My mind raced, trying to comprehend the betrayal unfolding before me. Louis’s sudden shift in allegiance, with Jenny’s presence, left me feeling dizzy and disoriented.

The weight of Louis’s words hung heavily in the air, suffocating me. How could he so easily cast aside our love, our shared dreams, for the poison whispered by my tormentor?

Tears welled up even more in my eyes as I struggled to find my voice amidst the chaos of emotions swirling inside me. “Louis, please,” I pleaded, my voice barely a whisper. “You know me. You know I would never betray you.”

But Louis’s expression remained cold and impassive, his eyes fixed on Jenny with a determination that sent a shiver down my spine.

Jennie's laughter cut through the tension like a knife, sending a chill down my spine. “Looks like the little witch finally got what’s coming to her,” she sneered, her eyes glittering with malice.

“You gave me a ring!” I yelled. “Promised me…”

“I promised you nothing!” Louis fired back. “But I promise you suffering beyond anything you have ever experienced if you do not tell me my father’s location.”

“I don’t know!” I said, exasperated. “I really don’t.”

“Then I’ll have a little fun ruining your life,” he grinned.

“You can’t do that,” I said more to myself. “I am carrying your child.”

Louis’s eyes widened slightly before the cold mask of indifference returned.

“So?”

The single word brought my world crashing down. “Louis…”

“You opened your legs like your mother and got pregnant, and you think that will sway me. You are fucking pathetic.”

“Bruce,” Louis called. “Get her out of here.”

The guard guided my wheelchair out of the Blackwell mansion. I tried to withhold my tears but failed when Louis said his parting words. “Get ready for a war, Zoraya Carter.”

Jennie's shrill cackle followed me out of the mansion, a sound that would resound in my nightmares for years to come.