Twenty-Six receipts of betrayal Novel novel Chapter 17

The staff member was gone for maybe ten before she came back out. There was someone else with her this time.

Both of them were empty–handed.

Nicholas felt his chest tighten.

He pushed himself up from the chair, his body swaying unsteadily as he took a few stumbling steps forward.

“Where are her ashes?”

The two women heard the crack in his voice. They looked at each other, then back at him, faces going soft with sympathy.

“Mr. Sterling, I’m so sorry. I checked the records, and your wife left very specific instructions about how she wanted her remains handled. We’ve already carried out her wishes. I’m afraid there’s… there’s nothing here for you to take home.”

The words hit him like a punch to the gut.

Whatever had been holding him together just snapped.

He clenched his fists so hard his nails bit into his palms, jaw locked tight, and he lifted one shaking hand to point at the folder they were holding.

Seeing his pallor, they hesitated, clearly concerned the contents would be too much for him to bear.

“Mr. Sterling, your wife is at peace now. You need to take care of yourself. She’d want that.”

Their eyes were full of sympathy, and that told Nicholas everything he needed to know.

He could already guess what was written in there.

His vision blurred with grief, but he held out his hand anyway.

Nicholas opened the file with trembling fingers.

There were three questions printed at the top of the page in English.

And underneath each one, the same answer.

No.

Just two letters. But they doubled and tripled in his vision, bleeding together.

He blinked hard, forced his eyes down to the next section–a longer sentence.

He knew every word. But when he tried to string them together, they just dissolved into darkness and vanished before he could understand.

He closed his eyes, opened them, closed them again, but the sentence remained a foreign cipher.

One of the women noticed him struggling. She helped him sit down.

This time, staring at the words, Nicholas finally understood what Elara’s last wishes had been.

[After I die, please cremate me immediately. Don’t bury my ashes. When the first snow falls, scatter them somewhere. Anywhere.]

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Twenty–Six Receipts of Betraval: My Silence Was the Countdown to His Eternal Regret

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Chapter 17

He never knew how he left the building.

Didn’t remember how long he lay in the snow afterward.

All he remembered was losing his footing on the stairs, tumbling down, his body hitting the ground hard.

But the snow was soft underneath him. For a second, he thought maybe he’d died too. Thought maybe he’d floated up to heaven or some shit, weightless and numb.

Until the snow started melting from his body heat, soaking through his clothes, freezing his skin until it turned a mottled blue–purple.

That’s when he came back to himself.

It was dark now. The building’s lights were off. Everything was quiet.

Just him and the snow.

Nicholas exhaled, and his breath came out in a cloud of fog, blurring his vision.

He hadn’t noticed when the snow started falling again. But now he felt it, tiny crystals catching on his eyelashes like frozen teardrops.

Like tears.

But they weren’t tears.

Because Nicholas couldn’t cry anymore.

He stared up at the black sky, eyes unfocused, and for a second he couldn’t tell the difference.

Couldn’t tell if what was falling on him was snow.

Or if it was Elara.

Burned to ash. Scattered across the sky and gone forever.

All he could do now was hope, and plead, that these sudden, spectral blossoms of white would fall harder. and heavier.

Enough to bury him completely.

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