Chapter 36

Lauren's POV

“Once you walk out of these doors, I don’t want to ever see you here again.” Those words had burned into my memory like hot iron against skin. Ethan’s voice still echoed in my head whenever I let my mind drift back to that day. I remember the way his face looked cold, unbothered, as if the five years plus we spent together as husband and wife meant absolutely nothing to him. It was funny, in a bitter kind of way, how it only took him three short weeks to dismantle what we’d built over half a decade.

Yet here I was, just weeks later, standing on the edge of doing exactly what I swore I would never do, going back to that house. Back to him. But not for him never for him. This was about Elena.

I glanced down at the blanket in my hand, the one that had been with Elena since she was a baby, the edges a little frayed, but it still smelled faintly of her baby fragrance. That blanket meant the world to her, it was her comfort, her security. Wi