Chapter 3A Lifetime of Atonement for Her

I insisted on going home to pay my respects to my mother. Damian, knowing how important she was to me, arranged for my discharge. He carried me all the way from the car, whispering sweet nothings in my ear.

“Christine, even if you can’t see, even if you can’t use your hands, I’ll be with you, loving you always. I will be your eyes, your hands. I will spend the rest of my life with you.”

Once, those words would have made me melt. Now, they sounded like a vile curse.

Damian carried me into the memorial room he had specially set up in our home, so I could pray for my mother whenever I wished.

But as we entered, my blood ran cold.

The black-and-white portrait on the wall… it wasn’t my mother. It was Savannah’s.

Damian, oblivious, guided me to the prayer cushion with practiced ease. He knelt first. “Rest in peace, mother.”

He looked up at me. “Christine? Aren’t you going to kneel?”

I prayed this was all a hallucination.

How many nights had I knelt in this very room, my heart breaking as I confessed my failure to find Mom’s killer? How many times had I bowed my head until my forehead bled, praying for her peace in the next life, begging for a chance to be her mother someday?

And all that time, Damian just watched me with that gentle, loving expression.

He exploited my blindness, watching me kneel and pray, day after day, to the mother of the woman who killed my own.

My stomach heaved, and I vomited until there was nothing left.

Damian fussed over me, his concern a sickening charade. He finally carried me to bed, falling asleep in his clothes beside me.

I watched his phone light up on the nightstand. A message from Savannah.

“Dearest hubby, is Christine still blind? I’ll keep sending her encouraging messages then. Hope she gets well soon!”

I picked up my own phone. Over a hundred messages from her. She knew I couldn’t read them, but she couldn’t resist the chance to torment me.

“Damian is just too much! For my birthday, he bought me a private island AND a custom jewelry collection. He even booked out the most expensive hotel in the city for my party, said I deserve the best. Such a waste of money, right? You should tell him off for me, Christine. ;)”

“Leo had a tantrum today, said he hates being called your ‘sweet boy.’ Said you’re disgusting, always holding him and kissing him. Damian felt so bad for him, he set up ten trust funds and bought him 99 supercars in different colors. He’s so young, he’s going to be so spoiled!”

I stared at the photos of the three of them—a perfect, happy family. The sight was a physical pain. I opened my closet. It was filled with cheap, generic clothes. I touched my flat stomach, a hollow, empty space where life would never grow again.

I was the one who helped Damian through his company’s crisis, using my skills as a criminal profiler to unmask a corporate spy and help him rebuild his financial empire. And for all that, all I ever got was a pat on the head and a condescending, “You’ve worked so hard, Christine. You’re the best.”

My eyes landed on Savannah’s last message.

“I killed your mother. You kept screaming about finding the killer, and it gave my mom such a fright she had a fatal heart attack. It’s all your fault. But Damian said he couldn’t let you keep making mistakes. He’s making you atone. Making you kneel and pray for my mother’s soul, wishing her a peaceful afterlife. If you do that, then maybe… I’ll forgive you. ♡”

So this was it. The fruit of my love for Damian. Savannah’s forgiveness.

I looked at the unfinished sketch lying on my bedside table, my gaze turning to ice. I called my best friend, who was on an expedition in the Arctic.

“Three days,” she said. “Give me three days, and I’ll be there to get you out of that hell.”

Good. That was just enough time to finish this drawing.