Page 118 of Crushed Vow
The screen glared his name at me like a warning.
The moment I answered, I could feel his voice pierce right through me.
“Charlotte.”
Sharp. Alarmed.
“I checked the CCTV footage. You’re nowhere on the estate. Where are you?”
The tension in his tone wasn’t just suspicion—it was terror, laced with fury. My breath caught.
“I... I’m just heading home,” I said, voice barely steady.
“That’s not what I asked.”
His words hit like bullets.
“Where are you, Charlotte? You can’t lie to me—I’ll find out.”
I turned slightly, shielding the phone as Manuel’s voice slipped in close behind me, smooth and casual.
“A friend?”
Cassian’s tone dropped, guttural.
“That’s a man’s voice.”
The growl of a wolf just before it lunges. “Who the fuck are you with?”
I froze.
Then something in me snapped. A part that had been trembling under Grayson’s gaze, under Cassian’s control, under everyone’s suffocating expectations. My spine straightened, chin lifted.
“We’re divorced, Cassian.” My voice was steel. “Stop acting like my husband.”
Silence.
So I gave him no time to strike back.
I hung up.
The screen went black in my hand, but my heart kept thudding, every beat thick with adrenaline.
Manuel raised an eyebrow, his arms now crossed over his chest. “Your ex-husband?”
I gave a clipped nod, eyes skimming away. “Yeah. Long story.”
My voice cracked at the edge.
“I’ll see you some other time, Manuel.”
I pulled open the door, slid into the driver’s seat, and gripped the steering wheel like it might ground me. For a second, all I wanted was to drive until the highway swallowed me whole. But when I turned the key—
Grating. Grinding.
The car lurched with a metallic whine, a sound no engine should ever make. My stomach dropped.
What the hell?
