Twenty-Six receipts of betrayal Novel novel Chapter 14

Arrangements?

What arrangements?

Severe depression?

But the doctor had signed off six months ago, certifying her recovery.

The words just kept looping in Nicholas’s head, he couldn’t understand at all.

Before he could process any of it, the staff kept going.

“We received the death certificate yesterday from the Dignitas facility in Switzerland. We confirmed everything with the embassy and it all checks out. As Mrs. Kingston’s sole next of kin, we need you to sign off on closing out her affairs.”

The words “death certificate” detonated in Nicholas’s brain like a bomb.

“D–Death?” he stammered.

The officer looked up, clearly surprised by Nicholas’s reaction.

“Yes, Mr. Sterling. Your wife, Elara Kingston, came to this precinct about two weeks ago trying to pre file her death certificate. Yesterday we received confirmation from the Swiss authorities that she went through with it. She has passed. That’s why we called you in. You didn’t know?”

Nicholas understood each individual word.

But strung together, they made no sense.

Elara was dead?

She wasn’t just hiding somewhere because she was angry with him?

She was actually gone?

Nicholas shook his head violently, backing away from the desk.

“That’s impossible, She just turned twenty–four. She had a whole list of things she wanted to do… She can’t be dead.”

“She promised her parents she’d keep fighting. She PROMISED them. She wouldn’t break that promise.”

“And the snow–she wanted to see the first snow. It never even snowed in Switzerland. She wouldn’t leave before-”

He was clawing at his hair now, his whole face contorted, frantically grasping for proof, for ANYTHING that would prove

the

But with every word that came out of his mouth, his voice got weaker, thinner, until it finally just cracked apart completely.

Until he couldn’t speak anymore at all.

Because somewhere deep down, he knew.

Nothing he was saying proved Elara was alive.

Twenty Six Receipts of Betrayal: My Silence Was the Countdown to His Eternal Reerm

cop wrong.

Chapter 14

If anything it proved the opposite.

The remenbered the bucket list with twenty items.

Why would a twenty four year old feel the need to cram in that many wishes unless she didn’t think she had much time left?

The things she’d said at her parents‘ grave–they hadn’t been about missing them. They’d been about joining them. About finally being free.

Finally picked

The trip to Switzerland to see the first snow–she hadn’t picked Iceland or Norway or anywhere actually known for winter. She’d picked Switzerland. A country where assisted suicide was legal.

In order to complete this death ritual, Elara had been planning this for weeks.

Right under his nose.

And not only had he failed to notice, he’d made everything worse–abandoning her over and over.

All those memories came flooding back with brutal clarity.

This time, all the laughter and tears, love and pain, care and neglect, transformed into gleaming double edged swords, piercing his chest.

A desperate, suppressed scream escaped his throat.

A guttural, animal sound tore out of his throat.

His legs gave out completely and he collapsed onto the cold linoleum floor, his whole body convulsing with sobs.

Tears streamed from his bloodshot eyes and dripped onto his palms where his nails had dug in so deep they’d broken the skin.

The tears mixed with blood, turning dark red.

It looked brutal and irreversible.