Bound By A Broken Night novel Chapter 115

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Chapter 115

“Over and over again, I told you to leave that place. I told you your life would be better if you walked away.” His jaw clenched.

“I was ready to help you.”

A brief pause.

“But the moment you chose them over your own dignity…” His voice turned colder than before.

“I stopped offering.”

Silence pressed in around them.

Then Ashton exhaled slowly, his expression darkening as memories surfaced–memories he clearly did not like.

“I watched you grow up, Cassidy,” he said, quieter now, but no less intense.

“And I watched you slowly erase yourself.” His eyes swept over her, heavy with restrained anger.

“You bent. You endured. You swallowed every insult, every humiliation… just to earn a speck of approval from people who never intended to give it to you.” His jaw tightened again.

“You made yourself smaller and smaller…” His voice hardened.

“And I hated every second of it.”

‘And the only way you could ever escape that hell… was if the illusion broke.”

His voice dropped, quieter now—but heavier. Harder.

“If they ruined you.”

A brief pause. His jaw tightened.

“And the only way that would happen… was if I ruined you first.”

The words did not come with pride. They came like a confession carved out of stone.

Cassie’s breath hitched. Ashton’s eyes did not leave her.

“I needed you to hate them,” he continued, his tone steady but strained beneath the control.

“I needed you to see them for what they really were.”

He took a slow step closer, his gaze unwavering.

“I wanted you to stop waiting for their approval. Stop hoping. Stop begging for a place where you were never meant to belong.”

His voice lowered further.

“I wanted you to walk away.”

Another step.

“And never look back.”

The wind moved across the lagoon, but neither of them seemed to feel it.

“I wanted you to hate all of us,” Ashton admitted.

“Them. Me. Everyone who stood there and let it happen.” His eyes darkened.

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“So that when the time came… you wouldn’t hesitate.”

A long pause followed before he finished, his voice quieter–almost rough.

“So you wouldn’t feel guilty when you finally chose yourself.”

His gaze held hers, sharp but no longer cold–intense, conflicted, carrying the weight of something far more complicated than cruelty.

“Because the only way you were ever going to survive, Cassidy…”

Another beat.

“…was if you stopped trying to be loved by people who were determined to break you.‘

He stopped a few feet away from her. Close enough to reach. Far enough to feel the distance between them.

Silence settled, thick and unmoving. Their eyes locked.

Cassie’s gaze searched his face–careful, wounded, trying to measure the truth behind every word he had spoken. The pain in her eyes was unmistakable, but beneath it was something else now.

Understanding. Or the beginning of it.

Ashton did not look away. His expression remained calm, steady–almost resigned. As if he was allowing her to examine him, to judge him, to decide what he truly was.

Cassie parted her lips to speak. Then stopped.

The words that rose in her chest tangled with hesitation. With doubt. With fear.

Her silence stretched. Ashton saw it.

“That was the only way I knew how to help you reclaim yourself, Cassidy,” he said quietly.

His voice no longer carried the sharpness from before. Only certainty.

“Even if it meant you would hate me.”

The air between them tightened as he held her gaze.

“Even if it meant… I might never see you again.”

A faint, bitter smile touched his lips–one that didn’t reach his eyes.

For the first time, there was no control in that expression. Only the quiet acceptance of a cost he had already decided to pay.

He did not look away.

“I was willing to be the villain in your story,” he continued, his voice low and steady.

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“So that when the time came… you wouldn’t hesitate.”

A long pause followed before he finished, his voice quieter–almost rough.

“So you wouldn’t feel guilty when you finally chose yourself.”

His gaze held hers, sharp but no longer cold–intense, conflicted, carrying the weight of something far more complicated than cruelty.

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