Arminda POV

The silence in the elevator was heavy, thick enough to choke on.

Charly was humming, tracing the frame of the lavender painting she didn't even like, her finger moving in slow, mocking circles.

Coleton stared straight ahead, a muscle in his jaw jumping as he ground his teeth.

When the doors slid open, I wheeled myself out first, desperate for the sanctuary of my room.

"You embarrassed me tonight," Coleton said to my back.

"You embarrassed yourself," I replied, not stopping.

"Hey!"

Charly stepped in front of my wheelchair, blocking my path to the hallway. "Don't talk to him like that. You're just a glorified maid with a degree."

"Move, Charly," I said, exhausted.

"Or what?" She smirked, leaning down until her perfume clogged my senses. "You'll break another bone?"

She stood at the top of the three steps that led down into the sunken living room. She looked at Coleton, who was taking off his jacket, then looked back at me. A wicked idea sparked in her eyes.

"Oops," she whispered.

Then, she threw herself backward.

It was a clumsy, theatrical fall. She landed on the carpeted steps with a thud that wouldn't even bruise a peach, but she screamed like she'd been shot.

"Ow! My back! She pushed me!" Charly wailed, clutching her spine. "Cole! She rammed me with the chair!"

Coleton spun around.

He saw Charly on the ground. He saw me sitting right above her.

He didn't pause to ask what happened. He didn't check the security cameras.

He crossed the room in two strides.

He seized the handles of my wheelchair and yanked it backward, spinning me away from her with such force that my cast slammed into the doorframe.

"Enough!" he roared, his face inches from mine.

He shoved the wheelchair again, pinning me against the wall. "You touch her again, Arminda, and I will forget every debt I owe you."

"I didn't touch her," I said, my voice trembling. "She threw herself down."

"Liar!" Charly sobbed from the floor, her voice a practiced tremolo. "She's jealous! She's obsessed with you, Cole!"

Coleton looked at me with disgust. "You're pathetic."

He turned and scooped Charly up into his arms, carrying her bridal style toward the master bedroom—his bedroom. The sanctuary I had never entered, except to change his dressings.

I sat there, pinned against the wall, listening to them.

"I can't stay in the guest room, Cole," Charly whimpered. "I'm scared of her."

"You're not staying in the guest room," Coleton said, his voice carrying through the open door. "You're moving in here. With me. Where I can keep an eye on you."

I watched as Charly’s head rested on his shoulder. She looked back at me and winked.

I managed to wheel myself into my room. I closed the door and locked it, though a lock meant nothing to a man like Coleton Barron.

The next morning, I woke up to the sound of movers.

I opened my door to find boxes everywhere. Charly's clothes, Charly's shoes, Charly's gaudy art. They were filling every corner of the penthouse.

Coleton was standing by the kitchen island, drinking espresso. He looked at me as I maneuvered out on my crutches.

"Charly is moving in officially," he stated, as if discussing the weather. "For her protection."

He pointed a finger at me.

"Don't talk to her. Don't look at her. And don't you dare touch her," he warned. "You stay in your room until your contract is up. Then you get the hell out."

I looked at the man I had saved. I looked at the space that had been my home, now invaded by the woman who was poisoning him.

"You don't have to worry, Coleton," I said, feeling a strange, cold peace settle over me. The hope was gone. The anger was gone. There was only nothing. "I won't touch her. I won't touch anything that belongs to you ever again."

I turned back to my room.

"Where are you going?" he asked, irritated by my lack of a fight.

"To pack," I said softly. "Properly, this time."

I closed the door. I pulled my suitcase out from under the bed. I didn't cry. I was done crying. I was a ghost in this house now, just waiting for the moment to fade away completely.

Arminda POV

I had become a ghost in my own life, a silent specter haunting the hallways of a penthouse that was once my sanctuary.

For three days, I remained invisible.

I watched them.

I watched Charly run her hands over things she didn’t understand. I watched her drag the furniture across the floor, moving the heavy leather armchairs to face the window because "the lighting was better for selfies."

I watched Coleton let her.

He was unrecognizable. The paranoid, razor-sharp Don I knew had been replaced by a man desperate to please a woman who treated him like a shiny accessory. He was trying to buy back the years he had lost in that wheelchair, and Charly was the price tag.

I sat in the corner of the sunken living room, my cast propped up on a velvet pillow. I was attempting to read a medical journal, trying to drown out the grating sound of Charly’s voice.

"What is this old thing?" Charly asked.

I looked up. My stomach dropped.

She was standing by the mantle, holding the rosewood box. It was small, inlaid with mother-of-pearl. It wasn't expensive, but it was the only artifact Coleton had kept from his father. It held his father’s first rosary.

It was the anchor Coleton used to cling to when the phantom pains in his legs became unbearable.

"Put that down, Charly," I said. My voice was low, rough from lack of use.

Charly turned, a wicked glint in her eyes. She tossed the box from one hand to the other like a toy.

"Why?" she asked, smiling. "Is it cursed? Or is it just another piece of junk you're obsessed with?"

"It belonged to his father," I said, my tone hardening. "He doesn't let anyone touch it."

"I'm not just anyone," she snapped.

She walked toward me, holding the box out over the unforgiving marble floor.

"Cole!" she yelled.

Coleton walked in from the office, phone in hand. He looked tired. He looked at me, then at Charly.

"What?" he asked.

"Arminda yelled at me," Charly pouted, her lower lip trembling with practiced ease. "I was just dusting, and she screamed that I was going to break it."

She looked at me, her eyes dead cold.

"Oops," she whispered.

She opened her fingers.

The box hit the marble. The sound was like a gunshot in the quiet room. The wood splintered. The lid cracked in half. The old rosary spilled out, sliding across the floor until it hit Coleton’s shoe.

Silence.

I waited for the explosion. I waited for Coleton to rage, to mourn the one piece of his history he actually valued.

"You clumsy bitch!" Charly shrieked, pointing a manicured finger at me. "She threw a pillow at me! She made me drop it!"

I hadn't moved. The pillow was still under my leg. I was ten feet away from her.

"Check the cameras, Coleton," I said. My voice was steady. "Just check the cameras."

Charly’s face went pale. "The cameras? You think I'm lying? Cole, look at my hands! I'm shaking!"

Coleton looked down at the broken box. He looked at the rosary touching his shoe.

Then, he stepped over it.

He walked straight to Charly. He took her hands in his.

"Are you cut?" he asked.

I felt the air leave the room.

"I... I think so," Charly whimpered, squeezing out a tear. "I was just trying to make the place look nice for you."

"It's just a box, Charly," Coleton said. He didn't look at the floor. He didn't look at me. "We can buy another one."

"It was your father's," I whispered.

Coleton turned his head. His eyes were empty gray stones.

"My father is dead," he said. "And you are on thin ice. Stop terrorizing her, Arminda. Or you won't make it to the end of the week."

He put his arm around Charly and led her away from the mess.

"Leave it," he ordered over his shoulder. "The maid will clean it up."

I sat there for a long time. I looked at the broken wood.

I realized then that the box wasn't the only thing that had shattered. The man I loved was gone. He hadn't just forgotten the past; he had executed it.