Chapter <b>277 </b>
ETHAN
Seeing Olivia like this nearly shattered me. I had never lunagined it could get worse than when Nick sent her to prison, but I was wrong. I had seen her suffering in that ce, seen the toll it took on her. I thought that was the worst of it, but this<b>, </b>this was something entirely different. The pain in her eyes was a level of brokenness I hadn’t known existed. She was no longer just someone who had been wronged by the system. No, this time, she was truly, <b>irrevocably </b>broken.
I stood outside the hospital room, the sterile, cold air of the corridor <b>pressing </b>down on me as I waited for any sign of rity. Inside, they were examining her, trying to assess the damage, trying to piece together the pieces of her shattered soul.
Marcus wouldn’t leave her side. He was there, steady and unwavering, even as I knew his heart must’ve been breaking, too. I could see it in his eyes. He wasn’t just her husband; he <b>was </b>the man who loved her beyond measure, the man who couldn’t protect her from the horrors that had been inflicted upon <b>her</b>.
And then I heard it. The scream.
It wasn’t just any scream. It was a sound so raw, so filled with agony that it felt like it was tearing through the very walls of the hospital. It was a scream that could onlye from someone who had been pushed beyond the point of <b>endurance</b><b>, </b>someone who had suffered a pain too great to bear. The noise was so soul crushing that it made my blood run cold. The sound reverberated in my chest, leaving a hollow emptiness behind. I had never heard anything like it in my life, and I prayed I would <b>never </b>hear it again.
For a moment, there was nothing but silence. The kind of <b>silence </b>that followed devastation, the kind where everything feels suspended in time. My heart raced in my chest as panic wed at my throat. My legs moved before I even had time to think. It was as though my body had a mind of its own, <b>pushing </b>me forward<b>, </b>urging me to act, to do something, anything. I rushed <b>to </b>the door, throwing it open just as Marcus spoke to her in <b>soothing </b>tones, his voice gentle but strained, trying to reach her in her torment.
When I <b>saw </b>Olivia<b>, </b>I froze. I could barely recognize her. Her face was pale, her eyes wide with terror, as if she <b>had </b>seen something unimaginable. She looked like <b>she </b>was barely holding onto herself, her entire being trembling with fear. I had never seen her like this. Not in prison, not after the loss she had endured, not even after they had taken something so precious from her. This, this was different. This was beyond anything I had ever seen, and it <b>made </b>my chest tighten with a sorrow so deep I thought I might drown in it. She wasn’t just hurt; she was undone.
The
woman who had always been so strong<b>, </b>so resilient, so full of life and fight, was now <b>a </b>shell of herself. There was nothing but pure horror in her eyes, a look I had <b>never </b>thought I would see. It was like a part of her soul had been ripped away, and whatever was left was too fragile, too broken to ever heal fully.
What had Xander done to her? What kind of monster could do this? I wanted to scream, to shout at the world, to find Xander and make him feel every ounce of pain <b>that </b>Olivia was suffering. The anger burned inside me, 50 fierce and hot that it threatened to consume me. If I could, I would drag him back to this room and make him suffer, make him pay for every second of terror he had put her through.
But no, what he had done to her couldn’t be undone by mere vengeance. This wasn’t just physical <b>pain</b>. It wasn’t <b>a </b>wound that could be healed with time or <b>even </b>with retribution. No, this <b>was </b>something deeper, something that went straight to the core of who Olivia was. It was as if he had torn through her very essence, leaving a gaping wound that no amount of anger or violence could ever fix.