Chapter 17. The Turning Point

Victoria’s POV

The room had grown unbearably quiet after he left. It wasn’t the peaceful kind of quiet—the kind that soothed or allowed rest—but the suffocating kind, heavy and oppressive, pressing down on my chest until breathing felt like work. The steady beep of the monitor beside my bed was the only sound, each pulse far too loud in the silence. My thoughts screamed inside my head, overlapping and relentless, and all I wanted—desperately—was for it all to stop. To shut everything out. To feel nothing at all.

I squeezed my eyes shut, but it didn’t help. Images replayed themselves behind my eyelids, sharp and vivid. His face. His voice. His confession.

I thought he was different.

For a brief, foolish, fleeting moment, I had convinced myself that the arrogant man who had saved my life might have been more tha