When Christian's voice finally trailed off, the private box fell into a long, heavy silence.

His breathing turned instinctively shallow and rapid, his hands clenching into fists beneath the table as his gaze locked onto Seraphina's face.

He didn't want to miss a single micro-expression on her features.

He looked exactly like a prisoner standing in a courtroom, awaiting his final sentencing.

Both desperate for a verdict of absolution, yet paralyzed with terror at what the final judgment might be.

This agonizing push-and-pull between hope and terror made Christian truly taste the heavy weight of torment for the very first time in his life. It felt as though his heart were being repeatedly roasted over an open flame, every passing second stretching out into an eternity.

Yet even the longest wait eventually has an end.

Ultimately, the verdict that belonged to him finally descended.

Chapter 20

"I accept that reason."

"But those three years, I can never forgive."

"If there's nothing else, I'll be leaving. Christian, there's no need for us to see each other ever again."

Seraphina picked up her bag, entirely ignoring the sudden paleness of Christian's face as she turned to walk toward the exit.

Finally hearing his explanation brought none of the relief or closure she had imagined.

Instead, a deeper sense of grievance rushed up, tightly suffocating her chest.

Regardless of the true nature of the arrangement between Christian and Natalia, the undeniable fact remained.

For three whole years, the man she loved most had personally pushed her into the arms of the man she found most repulsive and despised, leaving her to be ruthlessly played with at his whim.

Seraphina bit her lower lip hard, fighting back the tears that threatened to spill over.

"Sera."

Just as she reached the door, a burning, large hand violently clamped around her wrist. The force was immense, nearly crushing the bones in her arm.

She snapped her head around, colliding directly with Christian's eyes, which were as dark as ink.

Christian felt a sharp pang in his heart, pierced by the icy detachment in her gaze.

From childhood to adulthood, the way Seraphina looked at him had always been filled with warmth, adoration, tenderness, and love.

She had never once regarded him with such a distant, hollow look.

It felt as though his heart were being brutally torn open, the pain leaving him gasping for air.

Like a child who had made a terrible mistake and was left completely helpless, he violently let go of his grip, his voice raspy and low.

"I'm sorry, Sera, I didn't mean to..."

Christian's words cut off abruptly.

His gaze locked onto her neck, right next to that alluring red mole, where a faint yet unmistakably provocative crimson mark was stamped into her skin.

He didn't need to guess to know exactly who had left it behind.

When he was seventeen years old, his schedule had been abruptly rearranged for an equestrian class at noon, and he hadn't had time to inform Seraphina.

Seraphina came to the villa almost every single day after school for him to tutor her, and terrified of keeping her waiting, he had rushed back at absolute top speed the moment class was dismissed.

At four in the afternoon, he pushed open the master doors of the villa, only to find Caspian sitting on the sofa.

Caspian was dressed in one of his white shirts, his face scratched up as he used a cotton swab to apply medicine to the wounds.

Christian's dark eyes had swept over the shirt his brother wore, before locking onto the bloody scratches dragged across his face by long fingernails.

An ominous premonition had settled in, his entire aura turning freezing cold.

"Why are you wearing my clothes?"

The hand Caspian used to hold the cotton swab paused for a moment. He glanced down at the shirt he wore, then curved his lips into a lazy, arrogant smile.

"I originally wanted to put this on to play Christian and tease Seraphina a little, but she recognized me instantly. See? Her claws left me looking like this."

"I'm going to chop off her feral little hands sooner or later."

"Still, I didn't lose out. I bit her neck until it bled. She'll have to wear a scarf for the next half-month if she wants to step out the door."

Caspian had suddenly narrowed his eyes, his tongue pressing against his cheek. "Though I only just realized she has a small red mole on her neck."

"That little red mole really knows where to grow. It makes a man's chest itch just looking at it."

Back then, they had both entered adolescence, and Christian could easily read the raw, naked lust written across Caspian's face as he spoke those words.

The absolute limit of his patience shattered, leaving him entirely cold. His hands slammed into tight fists, and without wasting another syllable, he drove a violent punch straight into Caspian's face.

From childhood to adulthood, though he and Caspian had never gotten along, they had almost never engaged in a real physical fight.

Most of the things Caspian wrenched away from him were things he didn't particularly care for anyway.

This was their very first brawl.

After taking the punch, Caspian had retaliated almost instantly.

Neither brother held anything back, delivering bone-crushing blows to each other's vital areas.

It wasn't until their parents returned, alerted by the commotion, that they were forcefully pulled apart.

Snapping out of his memories, Christian's gaze remained fiercely fixed on the hickey stamped against Seraphina's neck.

Her skin was naturally as white as jade, making that vivid crimson mark stand out with a violent, jarring impact.

Like a red-hot needle driving into his core, the sight left his heart aching with agonizing pain.

It felt as though a wildfire had suddenly been ignited within him, the blistering heat surging through his veins to flood his entire body, completely burning away his residual sanity.

Christian took a massive stride forward, his large hand slamming down over the crimson mark on Seraphina's neck.

Chapter 21

"Did Cas do this?"

"What the hell did he do to you this time?!"

Christian's voice turned entirely raspy, his thumb rubbing over the hickey on Seraphina's neck completely out of control, desperate to violently scrub away the imprint left behind by another man.

"What do you think you're doing!"

"Christian, let go of me!"

Seraphina pounded her fists wildly against the hand clamped around the back of her neck, her feet kicking hard against his legs.

But the man before her remained as unyielding as a massive mountain. No matter how frantically she fought back, he didn't budge a single inch.

A sharp whimper of pain escaped her throat as the delicate skin of her neck was rubbed raw, nearly tearing open beneath his touch.

After an unknown stretch of time, Christian finally released his grip.

His breathing was heavy, looking as if he had only just snapped back to reality.

His dark eyes locked onto Seraphina's neck. The patch of skin had turned a bloody crimson, and a few spots had even scraped open, weeping tiny beads of fresh blood.

Seraphina stared back at him, her eyes wide and swirling with a mixture of burning rage and terrified tears.

Christian's heart violently contracted, his throat rolling hard. "Sera, I..."

"Snap!"

The only response he received was a sharp, resounding slap delivered straight across his face.

Seraphina had poured every ounce of her strength into the blow, leaving her own palm tingling with a numb ache.

She stared dead at Christian, whose head had been knocked to the side, her chest heaving violently.

Even she had never imagined that a day would come when she would strike the very man she had held closest to her heart—the man who had defined her entire youth—in the exact same way she struck Caspian.

A warm, large hand gently reached out to take her numb left hand, his thumb lightly stroking her reddened palm over and over again.

In a split second of a trance, she found herself remembering the past.

"Christian, Caspian was acting like a psycho again today, so I slapped him. Now my hand hurts so much."

The teenage boy had taken her hand into his own, rubbing it with a feather-light touch as his voice drifted like a gentle spring breeze. "Force is always reciprocal. When you strike someone with ten units of strength, you absorb seven units yourself."

"Next time he tries to bully you, just tell me. I'll handle it."

"Okay."

The memories rushed back like a violent tidal wave, flaring into a sharp, bitter ache within her chest.

Seraphina violently wrenched her hand out of his grip.

Christian's palm was left suddenly empty, looking as if a vital piece of his soul had been hollowed out, leaving behind nothing but a hollow ache.

He simply stared at her, while Seraphina kept her eyes lowered, her gaze fixed onto the floor.

The two of them tumbled into a long, suffocating silence.