She looked up at him, and her eyes were empty, hollowed out by years of guilt.
"You want to kill me? Do it. Please, God, do it. End this. Because living with what I did to you has been worse than any death you could give me."
Jorghan stood frozen, his mind churning.
This wasn't the confrontation he'd expected. He'd anticipated denial, justification, maybe rage. But this raw, broken honesty—this complete collapse of the woman he'd once loved unconditionally—he didn't know how to process it.
Maybe I should have just killed her.
Jamie—his uncle—finally spoke, his voice rough. "She's not lying. The guilt has eaten her alive. There hasn't been a single day in eighteen years where she hasn't mentioned you, hasn't questioned what she did. Some nights she drinks herself unconscious trying to forget. Other nights she stares at your old photos until dawn."
