Chapter 8

Serena's POV

I pulled off the highway onto the narrow access road, gravel crunching like bones beneath my tires. The wind howled across the overlook, carrying the salty bite of the ocean. Jax and Anna stood there like a perfect couple in a twisted postcard—his arm slung possessively around her shoulders, both of them smiling as I approached.

I stumbled out of the car, legs numb, vision blurred with exhaustion and grief. Every step toward them felt like walking through broken glass.

“My father is dead,” I said, voice cracking before I even reached them. “He saw the photos. The ones you leaked. He died thinking his daughter was a whore who sold herself out.”

I stopped a few feet away, chest heaving. “Are you happy now?”

Anna tilted her head, her smile turning razor-sharp. “Happy? We’re ecstatic, Serena. You finally got what you deserved.”

Jax chuckled lowly. “You still don’t get it, do you? That little bribery scandal with your father… that wasn’t some random investigation. We made that happen. Me, Anna, and a few very powerful families who were tired of his precious ocean protection bill getting in the way of their profits. He was costing us millions. So we buried him. Professionally first… then literally.”

The world tilted. My knees nearly buckled. “You… you framed him? All of it? The evidence, the news reports, everything?”

“Obviously,” Anna said sweetly, inspecting her nails. “Your father was too stubborn. Always preaching about saving the sea while real people were trying to make money. We just sped up the inevitable.”

I felt something inside me shatter. A raw, animal sound tore from my throat as I clutched my chest, gasping for air that wouldn’t come. Everything I had fought for, every sacrifice, every humiliating video I’d made to pay lawyers and medical bills—it had all been for nothing. They had killed him long before that final hemorrhage.

But Anna wasn’t done. She stepped closer, eyes glittering with malice.

“Oh, and one more thing, sweetheart. While you were out there ‘working’ these past two years—doing provocative photo shoots for strangers just to scrape together money for your daddy’s treatment—Jax and I were together. For two whole years.” She laughed, bright and cruel. “Every time you left for those trips, we’d fuck in your bed. Your sheets. Your pillows. Sometimes we’d even leave the mess for you to find when you came home exhausted and smelling like other men. It was the most delicious part of all.”

Jax didn’t even deny it. He just smirked, pulling Anna tighter against him.

I broke.

Sobs tore through me, violent and ugly, as the full weight of their betrayal crushed what remained of my soul. The man I had loved. The best friend I had trusted. The life I had bled for. All of it was poison.

I screamed at them, raw and feral, until my voice gave out.

Anna’s face twisted with impatience. “God, you’re pathetic even now.”

She shoved me—hard.

My heels slipped on the crumbling edge. For one terrifying second, I was weightless.

“Anna!” Jax shouted in genuine shock.

I fell.

My fingers scraped desperately at the rock, but Jax lunged and caught my wrist at the last moment. I dangled over the roaring abyss, the violent waves crashing far below like hungry jaws waiting to devour me.

“Let go,” I whispered, tears streaming sideways across my temples. I didn’t want to be saved. Not anymore.

“Serena—fuck, hold on!” Jax’s grip tightened, panic flooding his voice. He clearly hadn’t expected Anna to actually push me.

Then came the sound of frantic footsteps.

“Serena!”

Louis.

He threw himself to the ground at the edge, grabbing my other arm with both hands. His face was inches from mine, eyes wild with terror and something deeper—something broken.

“I’ve got you! Please, Serena, just hold on!”

The rock beneath him cracked. He was sliding too.

I looked into his desperate eyes and felt my heart fracture one final time. Even now, he was willing to die with me.

“Louis…” My voice was barely a whisper against the wind. “Let go.”

“I won’t,” he choked out, tears cutting tracks down his face. His grip was iron. “I can’t. Serena, I’ve loved you for years. Since before Jax ever looked at you. I’ve been in love with you this whole fucking time and I was too scared to say it. I watched you suffer, watched you destroy yourself for your family, and I stayed silent like a coward. But not anymore. I’m not letting you go. Not like this. I love you—do you hear me? I love you!”

His confession should have been my salvation. Instead, it was the final knife.

Because it was too late.

I smiled through the tears, a broken, hollow thing.

“I’m sorry… for everything. Dad… Mom… Louis. If I get another chance… I’ll make them pay. I’ll destroy them. I swear it.”

With the last of my strength, I wrenched my hands free from his desperate grasp.

“Serena—NO!”

His scream tore through the sky as I fell.

The wind roared in my ears. The sea rushed up to meet me. In those final seconds, one burning thought consumed everything else:

I will come back.

I will remember this pain.

And I will burn their world to ash.

Darkness swallowed me whole.