The CEO's Regret: You made me your lie, I become your Loss-Chapter 65: Shame
He turned and walked out, the bedroom door clicking shut with a finality that made her flinch. Outside, she heard him say a brief, dismissive word to Seren before the front door slammed.
Elara sat in the silence, her fingers trembling as she reached for the money. The bills felt oily in her hand. But it wasn’t the shame that made her blood boil, it was the name he had dropped.
Amara.
While Elara was selling herself in a dark room to keep a roof over her daughter’s head, Amara was whisked away to a luxury villa with Julian. Amara was the reason Seb had turned cold. Amara was the reason the Creed family had cast her out.
The grief in Elara’s heart curdled into a sharp, crystalline rage. She clutched the money so hard it wrinkled. She didn’t just want a new apartment anymore; she wanted to see the look on Amara’s face when everything she loved was burned to the ground.
Elara sat on the edge of the bed, the crumpled bills clutched in her fist until her nails drew blood from her palms. The cartoon noises from the living room felt like needles in her brain. Every laugh from the TV was a reminder of how low she had fallen, while Amara, the perfect Amara, was likely packing silk robes for a stay at the Ice Villa.
"The Ice Villa," Elara whispered, the words tasting like poison. "The place where dreams go to stay frozen."
She stood up, her legs shaky but her mind suddenly, terrifyingly clear. She walked to the mirror and looked at her reflection. Her eyes were hollow, her lips bruised, but a cold fire was starting to burn in her gaze. She wasn’t just a discarded ex-wife anymore. She was a woman with nothing left to lose, and that made her the most dangerous person in Amara’s world.
She reached for her cracked phone and began to search. The Ice Villa was a fortress of glass and snow, exclusive and secluded. You didn’t just walk in; you had to belong.
"You think you’re safe, Amara? It’s time to pay me what you owe me," Elara hissed at the screen, her thumb hovering over a picture of the resort’s sparkling entrance. "You think Julian can protect you from the mess you made of my life."
She counted the money King had left. It wasn’t enough for a suite, but it was enough for a train ticket to the mountain base and a disguise. She didn’t need a room; she just needed to be a shadow in the hallway. She needed to be the nightmare that Amara couldn’t wake up from.
She walked out into the living room. Seren looked up, her face hopeful and scared. "Mummy? Are we going to be okay?"
Elara knelt down and gripped the girl’s shoulders. Her touch was a bit too tight, her eyes a bit too bright. "We’re going on a trip, Seren. We’re going to find the people who took our happiness away, and we’re going to take it back."
"Is Daddy there?" Seren asked.
"No, baby," Elara said, a dark smile twisting her face. "But your mummy, Amara, is going to be there. And she’s going to pay for every tear you’ve cried and for the loss of your baby brother."
She began to pack a small bag, throwing in dark clothes and a heavy coat. She didn’t care about the cold. The rage boiling in her veins was enough to keep her warm. As she zipped the bag shut, she looked at the door. King thought he had bought her, but he had actually just funded her vengeance.
Amara wanted a peaceful retreat. Elara was going to give her a massacre of the heart.
The Ice Villa loomed out of the swirling mountain mist like a palace carved from a glacier. It was beautiful, silent, and terrifyingly isolated. As the black car pulled up to the entrance, the crunch of gravel under the tires sounded like breaking bone in the heavy mountain air.
Julian stepped out first, his coat collar turned up against the biting wind. He reached back for Amara, his hand steady and warm. "We’re here," he whispered, searching her face. "No one knows where we are. No phones, no business, and I plan to make you forget the nightmares, and the snow is the perfect start."
Amara stepped out, her breath hitching as the sub-zero air hit her lungs. She looked up at the towering walls of glass and white stone. It was supposed to be a sanctuary, but as she looked at the dark pine trees surrounding the property, a familiar, cold shiver raced down her spine. It wasn’t just the weather. It was the feeling of a thousand eyes peering from the shadows of the forest.
"Do you like it?" Julian asked, pulling her close to his side.
"It’s... it’s perfect," Amara said, though her voice wavered. She forced a smile, wanting so badly to believe him.
They walked through the grand lobby, where a roaring fireplace did little to settle the unease in her gut. As they checked in, Amara glanced toward the heavy revolving glass doors.
For a split second, she thought she saw a woman standing by the edge of the perimeter fence, a woman in a dark, cheap coat that didn’t belong in a place this expensive. A woman holding a small child by the hand.
Amara blinked, and the figure was gone, swallowed by a fresh gust of snow.
"Amara?" Julian noticed her pale face. "What is it?"
"Nothing," she lied, clutching her silk scarf tighter. "Just the wind. I think I just need to get inside."
Upstairs, in their sprawling suite overlooking the jagged peaks, Julian began to unpack, his movements calm and purposeful. But Amara stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, staring down at the white expanse below.
She didn’t see the shadow moving through the staff entrance two floors down. She didn’t see Elara, her face hidden by a low cap, pulling Seren into the service elevator using a key card she had spent half of King’s money to bribe from a desperate maid.
Elara stood in the cramped elevator, her heart thumping a jagged rhythm against her ribs. She looked at the floor numbers ticking upward. Four. Five. Six. Amara was on the penthouse level.
