Chapter Fifty Seven

Chris struggled to rise, but his legs buckled, sending him crashing back to the ground with a groan, clutching his throbbing head as the world spun violently around him. His eyes squeezed shut against the dizziness.

Isa finally broke down. She ran to him and dropped to her knees, clutching his arms.

“Chris? Chris?”

Alex smiled bitterly, watching Isa’s frantic hands cup Chris’s face, tears streaming down her cheeks. His gaze clung to her panic-stricken expression, and his chest burned.

He had thought, at last, she would be his. Chris had stolen her once—why was it happening again?After all the years I had longed to see her again.

After his parents died, he had no one but Uncle Khalid. His dream of becoming a doctor might have stayed only a dream if not for the facial surgery. The mirror had become his enemy, nightmares his only companion.

“You’ve suffered enough, Alex.” His uncle’s words echoed as Alex’s lips curved into a bitter smile.

“I won’t sit back anymore,” his uncle had said fiercely, hands gripping his shoulders. “I’ll avenge my brother. I’ll make his son suffer, just he did to you.”

A hollow laugh slipped from Alex’s throat. He wiped at the tears streaking his face with the back of his hand.

“I forgot to give you your medicine,” That night slithered back into his memory.

He remembered the night clearly—bursting into his uncle’s room as Khalid turned, startled.

“Oh,” his uncle had muttered, giving him a small, strained smile, still uneasy after their heated argument.

“This will make you feel better,” Alex had said, dropping a pill into his palm. “You’ll sleep well.”

He had even brought him water to use it. Later, from the doorway of the bathroom, Alex had watched as his uncle slid into the tub, his body growing still, slipping into death as easily as sleep.

Now, Alex’s smirk returned as his gaze flicked back to Isa. She was fumbling with her phone, dialing frantically with one hand while clinging to Chris with the other. Chris pressed a trembling hand against his chest, his head resting weakly against Isa’s arms.

“I killed my uncle,” Alex said coldly. “Because nothing was going to stop me.”

The words snapped Isa’s head up. She froze, holding Chris tighter, her body shielding him.

“He’s done nothing to you!” she spat, her eyes fierce despite the tears spilling down her face.

“Everything that happened was both your fathers’ doing,” she panted, nails digging into Chris’s arm as she held on. “You’ve killed enough—your uncle, innocent people—you’ve taken enough, Alex. Please!” Her voice cracked. “Just stop!”

Maybe I could have stopped… if I hadn’t killed my uncle.Alex’s chest tightened, breath rasping.Maybe if I’d had you.

His skin prickled as if pierced by thorns, his eyes burning with unshed tears. He swallowed the lump rising in his throat, his grip tightening on the gun. Slowly, he raised it and leveled it at Isa.

His heart split as Isa gasped, eyes widening in terror—but still she clung to Chris, refusing to let go.

He had only meant to scare her at first, to break her loyalty, to make her deny Chris. But he was wrong. Nothing could tear her away.

He remembered seeing her in Chris’s house, wearing his shirt as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Defending him every time. Growing fiercer the more Alex tried to pull her away.

“No,” she had once said without hesitation when Chris confronted her about her love for him. “I don’t. I never did.”

Then why give me hope? Why let me taste you only to throw me away?She had kissed him back. She had smiled when he told her he loved her.

“You shouldn’t have betrayed me,” he choked, voice cracking. Isa shook her head, pleading silently with her eyes.

He scoffed, a broken sound. “Better I kill you than let him keep you.”

He steadied the gun and pulled the trigger.

The thunderous crack split the air. Isa flinched, but Chris shoved her aside and took the bullet square in his back.

“Chris!” Isa screamed as he gasped, blood pouring from the wound. His breaths grew shallow.

The metallic scent of blood wafted through the air, and Alex grimaced, almost tasting its bitter tang. His chest clenched, hollow and dry, as if wrung out by unseen hands. He couldn’t place why he felt this way—maybe because of the love they were displaying. He scoffed at the ridiculous thought, shaking his head with a cruel smirk.

“He’s dying anyway.”

Alex raised the gun toward Isa.

But a shot rang out.

Alex cried out as the bullet tore through his wrist, the gun clattering to the ground. He clutched his bleeding hand, teeth gritted, chest heaving, eyes darting wildly.

Then he saw them—police swarming in from the shadows. One officer ran toward him, wrestled him down and snapped cuffs around his wrists. Others rushed to Isa and Chris, assuring Isa he would live. A wailing ambulance pulled up, medics spilling out.

Everything blurred. Too fast to process.

Shoved toward the patrol car, Alex twisted for one last look. Chris lay strapped to a stretcher, Isa bent over him, whispering through sobs, cupping his face as the medics loaded him into the ambulance.

Alex’s face twisted, bitter as bile on his tongue.

Shoved into the back seat, the door slammed shut. Through the window, he watched the ambulance doors close. Sirens wailed as it tore away into the night.

Alex’s chest hollowed with a single wish: Chris’s death.

He had kept Chris alive only to watch him suffer. But now, he didn’t need him alive at all.

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