Caspian's head was knocked to the side.

He slowly turned his face back, his thumb lightly brushing against the broken skin at the corner of his lip, where a trace of fresh blood stained his fingertip.

Then he laughed.

Beneath the lights, his laughter rang out wildly, blood trickling from his torn lip, making him look exactly like a freshly satiated predatory beast.

It was a terrifying and gruesome sight.

"Psychopath," Seraphina spat through gritted teeth, turning immediately to push the car door open.

But her wrist was once again violently seized by his hand.

"Sera."

Thoroughly exasperated, Seraphina violently wrenched her hand free from his grip. "Caspian, what exactly do you want?"

Caspian instinctively lowered his eyes, staring at his empty palm.

When he lifted his gaze again, he collided directly with Seraphina's eyes, which were completely frosted over with coldness and detachment.

For the past three years of their marriage, every single time she looked at him, her eyes had been filled with nothing but tenderness and love.

Those clear, bright eyes had looked as though they held absolutely no one else but him.

Caspian's heart felt as if it were being squeezed by an invisible hand, his breathing turning shallow and constricted.

His throat swallowed hard. The apologies he had rehearsed repeatedly on his flight to London were now entirely jumbled up, wedged tightly in his throat, refusing to flow smoothly.

After a long silence, he finally found his voice, his tone carrying a trace of clumsy panic.

"Sera, I came here to apologize to you."

"Swapping identities with my brother to deceive you... I was wrong. I shouldn't have lied to you."

"And then?"

Seraphina's crimson lips curved into a very faint, mocking arc as she stared at him quietly.

Having known him for so many years, she understood exactly what kind of man Caspian was.

Violent, cruel, and profoundly selfish down to his very marrow. Even if he truly found himself at a disadvantage, he would never easily admit his faults.

The only reason he was willing to lower his head and apologize right now was because an "apology" offered him greater leverage and more benefits.

Yet Caspian was completely dazed by her faint smile.

Over the past month, he had dreamed of her smiling at him like this countless times.

But every single time he reached out to touch her, he would grasp nothing but a hollow illusion.

Now that this very smile was real and right before his eyes, he froze entirely, even slowing his breathing out of fear that if he reached out, the person before him would shatter like a dream.

In the next moment, as if realizing something, Caspian lowered his eyes slightly, his heart giving a violent thud.

In the past, Seraphina's smiles and her tenderness had all been directed at "Christian."

He had only been able to steal a fragment of her warmth by hiding behind Christian's identity.

But just now, she had called him "Caspian." She had recognized him with absolute clarity.

Caspian's throat rolled, his voice dropping low.

"And then, we can go back to living together just like before, alright?"

"Sera, you've seen it over these three years. I can treat you well just like Christian did, caring for you and protecting you. We... we are also perfectly compatible in bed."

He paused, his tone softening into a desperate plea.

"Let's start over, alright? This time, I'll put far more care into it than before, and I promise I will never let you suffer any grievances again."

Chapter 17

"Start over."

Seraphina murmured those two words softly, her tone entirely unreadable.

An instant spark of hope flared within Caspian's eyes, his heart hammering wildly as his words tumbled out in a rush, "Yes, Sera, let's start over—"

"Stop disgusting me."

Her flat, cold voice was like a blade dipped in ice, driving with absolute precision straight into Caspian's chest. A sharp, piercing pain rippled through his veins, instantly paralyzing his entire body.

The smile froze dead on his lips, his left hand trembling uncontrollably as his voice began to shake.

"Sera, I'm serious."

Seraphina had no desire to watch him perform any longer, laying her cards out on the table with brutal clarity. "Start over? And continue to let you two brothers play me for a fool?"

"I don't want to be caught in your traps, getting caught in fires or getting targeted by thugs all because of Natalia anymore. The divorce is finalized. Your vendettas and your games—I want absolutely no part in them, and I refuse to be a prop in your twisted little arrangement."

Caspian scrambled to explain himself, his voice laced with panic.

"That fire was arranged by Christian's people, I had absolutely no idea about it! And that time with the thugs, I only wanted them to frighten you a little, I never expected they would actually lay their hands on you."

"The harm has already been done, hasn't it?" Seraphina cut him off cleanly.

Thinking back on everything that had transpired, Seraphina felt nothing but a deep ache for her past self.

She took a deep breath, suppressing the chaotic emotions swirling inside her.

"Caspian, I do not accept your apology. No matter what kind of act you put on right now, I will never believe another word. If you and your brother love Natalia so much, go fight over her, but keep me out of it."

Caspian's pupils contracted violently as he scrambled to grab her hand, his voice laced with an unprecedented desperation.

"Sera, I'm not like my brother. I don't love Natalia at all. I only pursued her because I wanted to wrench away whatever Christian cared about just to spite him. The one I actually love is—"

Caspian's words cut off abruptly. As he stared into Seraphina's calm, flat eyes, his throat rolled, as if anchoring a sudden hesitation over whether to speak the words aloud.

Seraphina let out a soft laugh, her eyes filled with a touch of unvarnished mockery. "You aren't trying to tell me that you love me, are you?"

Caspian's entire body went completely rigid, as if the darkest, most carefully hidden corner of his soul had been brutally pierced open, his breath halting for a split second.

The grip he had on her wrist tightened instinctively, his voice turning taut with a desperate, reckless resolve. "I do love—"

"Do you even believe that yourself?"

The mockery on Seraphina's small face was entirely undisguised.

"When I was three years old, just because I accepted a piece of candy from you, you pushed me down the stairs, staring at my bleeding forehead while laughing like a maniac."

"When I was seven, I wore my most beautiful dress, carefully dressing up to share the opening dance with Christian, and you tore my dress to shreds and chopped off my hair."

"When I was eleven, you ripped apart my prize-winning drawing in front of the entire school, calling me trash."

"When I was sixteen, you locked me inside the school gymnasium and tried to strip off my skirt."

"When I was twenty, simply because I chose to date Christian, you abducted me to Iceland, trying to throw me into the ocean or setting dogs to bite me every single day."

"And later on, you disguised yourself as Christian to entice and deceive me, forcing me into all kinds of humiliating positions in bed... You must have found that incredibly amusing, right?"

"The thing you call love is nothing more than the vile, degraded possessiveness you feel when you sleep with me."

Caspian felt as though his heart had been struck by a massive sledgehammer, a dull, crushing agony erupting violently within him.

Every single ounce of malice he had personally inflicted upon Seraphina in the past had now returned like a boomerang, driving straight back into his own flesh.

Leaving him completely battered and bleeding.

His voice turned entirely raspy, "No, Sera, I—"

One by one, Seraphina pried his tightly locked fingers off her wrist, slowly drawing her hand away.

She gazed at Caspian quietly.

This man, who had always been so high and mighty, viciously cruel, and dripping with arrogant pride, now held not a single trace of hostility in his eyes. There was only a helpless, pathetic vulnerability, looking as if his entire foundation had been hollowed out, his spine bowing slightly beneath the weight.

"Caspian,"

Seraphina's voice was very soft, yet every single syllable landed with absolute clarity.

"No matter what thoughts you hold right now, you should know that I have never once liked you."

Chapter 18

Boom.

Those words struck Caspian's ears like a sudden clap of thunder.

He could clearly hear the sound of the final taut string snapping violently inside his body.

The veins in Caspian's eyes turned crimson at a speed visible to the naked eye.

A deafening roaring filled his ears, his frantic heartbeat slamming hard against his eardrums as his breathing turned ragged and desperate.