Twenty-Six receipts of betrayal Novel novel Chapter 18

Not many people came to Elara’s funeral, and everyone was in a heavy mood.

Nobody had seen it coming. Elara ending her life like that–so quiet, so final.

Most of them had just seen her a few weeks ago. They’d had dinner together, laughed, talked about nothing. She’d seemed fine, normal. Not like someone planning to die.

The casket was empty. It held no body, no urn of ashes, not even a favorite dress to remember her by. Just piles of white lilies and white roses stuffed inside.

The only proof she’d ever existed was a fourteen–inch portrait photo sitting on the altar.

This deserted and desolate scene surprised everyone, and they couldn’t help but come and ask.

“We just wanted to say goodbye. Was she cremated? Where are her ashes?”

“Can’t you bring some of her things? Something she wore, something she loved?”

Nicholas stood there, pale as death, unable to answer.

All those years together, and he didn’t have a single thing of hers left.

Not one.

Even the photo on the altar–he’d only gotten that because the Dignitas staff handed it to him on his way out.

Looking at the calm and indifferent face in the photo, he couldn’t help but think of what happened on the day the photo was taken.

If he had just paid attention, would he have known she was closing her life’s accounts? Would he have understood why she needed a final, monochrome image?

Only when the situation became irreversible did Nicholas finally understand what he had done.

He had thought his secret affections were well hidden, that Elara would never suspect.

But they had known each other for a lifetime. They could read each other’s thoughts in a single glance.

Every time he’d ignored her. Every time he’d chosen Valentina instead. Every time he’d laughed with someone else right in front of her.

How could she not have known?

She had known everything. And she had been waiting for him to admit.

But he, lost in his own delusions, had ignored the chilling quiet and the profound disappointment she no longer bothered to hide.

Everyone at the funeral kept asking why.

But Nicholas knew he was the sole catalyst.

He was the one who had cost her her future, then corroded their shared past with a faithless heart, and finally, with relentless indifference, extinguished her last flicker of hope for the present.

He was the one who killed her.

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

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Chapter 18

After the funeral, Nicholas went home holding that single photograph.

He pushed the door open and walked inside, greeted only by the echo of his own footsteps.

When he stopped moving, the whole world stopped with him.

The apartment was cold and sterile, the bare white walls stripped of their pictures making the place feel like a morgue.

He looked around slowly, feeling like he’d stepped into another dimension.

Just a couple weeks ago, this place had been warm and full of live.

How had it become this hollow shell in just a few weeks?

The silence pressed down on him, heavy and suffocating, dragging him under.

He couldn’t feel time passing. Couldn’t feel his heart beating. Couldn’t feel anything except the frame in his hands, still warm from where he’d been holding it against his chest.

He had no idea how long he sat there, but eventually, the long night ended.

Sunlight crept through a gap in the curtains.

It was the first sunrise of the new year, breaking a stretch of weeks dominated by rain and snow.

Nicholas lifted his scarred, shaking hand toward the light, as if trying to grasp the rare, warm light.

Or maybe like he was reaching for ashes that weren’t there anymore.

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