---- The only person, he'd once thought, who was incorruptible. "They used her grandson to blackmail her. It was her, Don. Not your wife." BOOM. Vincent's world shattered. He remembered that night, when he had told Isabella his greatest secret... It hadn't been a test. It hadn't been a transaction. For a moment, it had been real... he'd felt something. He had destroyed the only person who had ever made him feel a flicker of something real.
He had taken that fragile, one-of-a-kind trust and ground it to dust. He had pushed her into the abyss himself. All because of a ridiculous suspicion he had never ---- bothered to confirm. "Throw her in the dungeon," Vincent's voice was as raw as sandpaper. "Keep her alive. Let her get acquainted with every instrument of torture we have." After giving the order, he couldn't hold himself up any longer. His knees gave out, and he fell into the wreckage.
This man, who had never known pain, who had never shed a tear, let out a choked, agonized howl. When a stumbling Claire arrived, she no longer saw the decisive, ruthless Don. She saw a broken man kneeling amid the wreckage of a banquet hall and his own life. He was sobbing, a raw, helpless sound, like a lost child. Achill ran through Claire. She finally understood. ---- Vincent's madness, Isabella's death... it was alla tragedy of his own making, one that could never be undone.
She turned silently, grabbing the suitcase she had already packed, ready to leave this hell. Vincent's head shot up. He saw her turning to leave, and a terror he had never known seized him. Isabella was dead. Now Claire was leaving, too. Everyone was leaving him. His heart seized. Asharp, unfamiliar agony ripped through him. Is this what pain feels like? He couldn't tell if the agony was for the woman he had killed or the one who was about to abandon him.
He only knew he couldn't bear to lose anything else. "Claire, don't go!"