Chapter 277
Julie’s POV
My breath was racing in my chest as if I had run a mile, while my trembling hands refused to steady. I stood before Sarah’s door, hearing faint whispers, suspicious movents. Robert was inside... the man who took my virginity, the man who convinced I was the "only one" in his life, was now fucking Sarah behind this deaf wooden door. He showed no regard for my existence; he didn’t hesitate to break my heart as if I were an insignificant insect. With an unbearable coldness, he tried to toss onto the shelves of oblivion, as if I were rely a bitter experint that expired after he took from the most precious thing I owned.
I froze in my place. I felt as if ti had suddenly stopped; the air around my lungs turned into polar frost, and I hardened until I beca like a statue of ice in a desolate hallway. My ability to speak vanished; even the scream died in my throat. I didn’t know how many minutes or perhaps hours passed while I was in that tragic state, but I ended up collapsing onto the cold floor of the hallway, my eyes vacant, fixed on the silver doorknob, watching it as if it were a beast about to prey on .
I wasn’t crying; the tears had dried in my eyes. I didn’t move, I didn’t scream. My soul had deserted my body, leaving behind a hollow human shell, a lifeless corpse that could only hear the sound of his footsteps behind the door. My sick imagination was painting hideous pictures for , fantasies gnawing at my mind and depicting every detail of what was happening inside every movent, every moan, was falling on my heart like hamr blows.
After an eternity of tornt, the sound of the lock clicking echoed. The door opened, and Robert stepped out. Our gazes t; features of surprise mingled with indifference were etched on his face, as if he hadn’t just committed a cri against my feelings. He closed the door behind him with a provocative calmness and walked down the hallway with steady, cold steps.
My broken eyes followed him as he ascended the stairs, his broad back moving away from without turning even once, as if I didn’t exist. I tried to rise, to scream at him, to gather my scattered pride, but my body was paralyzed, inhabited by a heavy betrayal.
Suddenly, I felt a warm, tender touch settle on my shoulder. I startled in terror before slowly raising my head. Max was standing over , his features reflecting genuine concern. He embraced tightly with his strong arms, as if trying to collect my scattered pieces, and whispered in a tone full of eagerness: "Oh Julie... finally... I was afraid you’d stay locked in that room for too long."
I tried to speak, but my voice ca out husky and rough, as if stones blocked my throat: "Max... tell ... are you okay? Did they hurt you?"
He answered while patting my hair reassuringly: "I’m fine, Julie, don’t worry about . The important thing is that you’re here."
I whispered with an exhaustion gnawing at my bones: "Good... that’s good."
He looked deep into my eyes with a focus that made feel exposed, and said with a concern he couldn’t hide: "Julie, you’re not okay. You look strange... pale, as if you’ve seen a ghost."
I swallowed my lump and tried to gather the remaining atoms of my pride, saying with a stutter: "It’s nothing... nothing is wrong... just exhaustion. Tell ... did you speak with Steve?"
He extended his hand to help up. My hand trembled in his before I stood staggeringly and leaned on him.
He said in a serious tone: "Get up, the floor is no place for you to sit... co, let’s go to my room. It’s not safe to talk here." I walked with him with staggering steps, every step reminding of their betrayals, until we reached his room and he closed the door. He breathed a sigh of relief and said: "I went to Steve. I told him literally everything you asked of . The man was out of his mind, roaring like a madman.
He gave his number and urged to tell you to contact him imdiately. He calls ten tis a day asking about you."
A spark of eagerness ignited in my eyes, and I said in a trembling voice: "Please... give your phone. I need to hear his voice now."
Max dialed the number with focus, then placed the phone in my hands. My hand was shaking over the screen. As soon as I put the phone to my ear and heard the familiar rasp of his voice, the dam of my patience collapsed: "Hello... Steve?"
His voice ca to like a cry of relief amidst the storm: "Oh Julie! Julie? Thank God... I was like a madman, I was on the verge of storming that club and blowing it up over their heads to get you out!"
I tried to calm him, mixing my fear with a feigned coldness: "Steve, please calm down, I’m fine... I’m not in danger. Just don’t do anything reckless."
He asked with a sharpness that cut my breath: "Julie, enough lies! What happened there? When will you get out of that hell?"
I said hesitantly, looking at Max who was watching warily: "I’ll get out... very soon. I just need so ti."
He said with an insistence that accepted no argunt: "I will help you. I’ll co myself to get you out."
I said firmly, trying to hide my brokenness: "No, Steve, stay away... I don’t want to get Max into trouble because of . I’m going to hang up now."
He whispered with a painful love: "Julie, please... take good care of yourself."
I said a single word: "I will."
I hung up and returned the phone to Max, but I remained silent, drowned in a world of dark thoughts. Max noticed my distraction; he approached with steady steps and placed his hand on my shoulder in a tender tone that pierced my defenses: "Julie... aren’t you going to tell what really happened?"
I said in a faint voice, barely coming from between my lips which trembled with weakness, as I made an arduous effort so my broken eyes wouldn’t et his piercing ones: "It’s nothing, Max... just exhaustion accumulated in my head."
Max wasn’t convinced by my hollow words; he shot a look full of suspicion and clear concern, and his brow furrowed as he asked in a deeper tone: "Are you really sure? Your face tells a story completely different from your tongue."
I nodded my head in a chanical, frozen movent, as if I were a wooden doll moved by strings, and said as I moved toward the door to escape the siege of his gaze: "Yes... I’m sure. Now I’ll go to my room, I need to sleep for a long ti... goodnight."
He replied in a calm tone that carried many unspoken questions: "Goodnight, Julie."
I left his room, and as soon as the door closed behind , I felt the coldness of the hallway seep into my bones. Instead of heading to my room as I claid, I found my feet leading in the opposite direction. My steps were steady this ti, carved by a dark decision beginning to take shape within . I walked toward the gym, and as I drew closer, my heart was pounding like war drums.
When I entered, the gym looked perfectly normal. Diego’s remains that had filled the place with blood had disappeared, and the polished floor had beco clean in a way that stirred suspicion and disgust. But, for so reason, that hideous image didn’t leave my mind; I imagined his corpse still lying there, and I saw phantom bloodstains haunting my vision. I felt a cold shiver run down my spine, as if the sll of death and iron was still clinging to the air, refusing to leave the place to the one who caused it.
I didn’t stop long for regret; instead, I headed directly toward that secret door Robert had shown last ti. I extended my hand and pressed the hidden point with a strange coldness. The door opened with a faint creak, revealing the desolate training area behind it, where the walls of weapons hung with military regularity glead under the dim lights.
I walked toward them with steady steps, my chest heaving with a terrifying calmness. I reached out my hand, which was trembling slightly at first before it hardened with the solidity of stone, to pick up a heavy grey pistol. I tested its weight in my palm, raised it up, and felt the coldness of its tal seep through my skin to reach my nerves, numbing any remaining fear. The pistol was perfect, comfortable, as if it had been made specifically for my small grip to settle around it.
I checked the magazine with high focus and senses as sharp as a blade; it had 6 bullets. Six chances to end all this pain. I slamd the magazine in with force until it settled, and a sharp, decisive tallic silence echoed in the hall. Now, there was no room for retreat or tears. My features settled into an icy stillness, and I whispered to myself with the pistol hidden among the folds of my clothes: "Now... I am ready for my plan."
With quiet steps, I left the place, a glint in my eyes that wasn’t there before the glint of a woman who decided she would no longer be the victim.
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Robert’s POV
I sought comfort on my wide bed, but my body was exhausted in a way that pillows couldn’t cure. I was lying there feeling the weight of the whole world on my chest. I closed my eyes, and mories of the past hours raged in my mind like a sandstorm. The image of that bitter brokenness I caught in Julie’s eyes haunted behind my closed eyelids like a ghost that refused to leave.
I couldn’t get the sight of her standing shattered behind the door out of my mind; her features were screaming with the ache I had caused.
At that mont, my heart squeezed with a longing to see her; I wanted so badly to run to her, to lock my arms around her waist and bury my face in her neck, telling her with all honesty that I hadn’t touched Sarah... that I couldn’t even kiss her because Julie’s ghost was blocking the faces of all won from .
But my cursed pride and that poisonous past that taught never to show weakness stood between and the truth; they prevented from being a simple man defending his love.
"She is surely drowning in her tears now," I told myself bitterly. I imagined her collapsed in her dark room, squeezing her pillow, thinking I had betrayed her with utter cold-bloodedness, that I had replaced her with that whore in a mont of recklessness.
A cold shiver shook my limbs when a terrifying thought struck , a thought that froze the blood in my veins: Could Julie, with that delicate soul of hers, do sothing bad to herself? Could despair drive her to kill herself?
My heart began to drum against my ribs with violence and madness. I exhaled in frustration and said aloud: "Damn it... I can’t stay like this... maybe I should go check on her, just make sure she’s still breathing."
Before I could rise or even push the covers off my body, the unthinkable happened. The bedroom door suddenly burst open with a force that made my heart leap from its place. Julie entered, but she wasn’t the Julie I knew. Her face was rigid, devoid of any human expression, as if carved from solid rock on a stormy night. Her eyes were gleaming with a strange light, a terrifying brilliance I had never seen in her before, as if she had drawn her strength from the fires of hell.
Her hair was falling in a scattered, rebellious way over her shoulders, adding to the ferocity of her appearance in that mont. But what paralyzed my movent completely was that thing she was gripping in her hand... a cold grey tallic glint shining under the dim lamp light. It was a pistol!
She raised her hand with a steadiness that terrified a steadiness I hadn’t seen and pointed the barrel of the pistol at .
Every cell in my body froze, and I felt a complete stiffness in my limbs as if I had turned into a stone statue before her will. She didn’t scream, she didn’t cry; instead, she said in a sharp tone, steady as a knife’s edge, and devoid of any tremor or hesitation:
"Answer honestly, Robert... did you fuck Sarah?"
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