Chapter 32
And on the nights the hallucinations got worse, when I screamed so loud I couldn’t breathe, when I scratched at my wrists like the straps were still there, Cassian would pull me against his chest, press his lips to my shoulder and whisper, “You’re not back there. You’re here. With me. I got you out.”
And I’d cry. Finally.
Because I believed him. And for once, I didn’t feel like I had to survive alone.
Not anymore.
Every morning started with silence now. Not the silence of fear, or trauma hanging in the air like a blade, but the kind of silence I chose. Up in Cassian’s mountain estate, wrapped in fog and pine and guarded gates, I finally had space to breathe.
I began trauma therapy with a soft–spoken woman who didn’t flinch when I told her how many times I had bled. She didn’t ask me to talk like I was broken, and she didn’t tell me to forgive like it was owed. She just listened. And when I couldn’t speak, she waited. That was the first time I felt seen outside of blood and cameras.
Cassian built a new security team. Handpicked, loyal only to me, trained to never let a single shadow reach me again without my permission. He handled it all without asking for applause. Just quietly, efficiently, like protecting me was second nature now.
Aziel came to visit next. My baby brother, bigger now, but still the softest light in my world. He arrived with his child therapist, and the second he saw me, he ran straight into my arms and said, “You’re not on the screen now. You’re here.” And I held him so tight I could barely breathe.
We painted together. We read stories. I watched him laugh again without fear. And that alone gave me a reason to keep healing.
I started journaling at night. Not just the facts. But everything I never said when I was Harmony. The nights I cried while Margaret screamed in the next room. The bruises I covered with silk. The ashes Hakeem threw at me and told me to kneel. Every single silence they buried me under…I wrote it down. Line by line. Like I was rewriting my own body.
Then, one still afternoon, under the pines, I held a private funeral.
It wasn’t grand. It wasn’t for the press. It was for me. For them.
I stood in a white suit, hair pulled back, eyes red but steady, and I laid two urns on the stone altar, my mother’s and my father’s.
Chapter 31
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silenced. Children who lost parents to dirty deals. We buried more than ashes that day–we buried shame. We buried silence.
I smiled through my tears and whispered into the wind, “I bury Harmony here. I rise as Celeste.”
Cassian stood in the back, arms crossed, eyes on me like I was the whole damn sky. And for the first time, I didn’t feel small under that gaze. I felt power rise through my bones.
–
Weeks later, I stood under blinding lights again but this time, it wasn’t for a role or a scene. It was the World Women’s Summit, and my truth was no longer a secret.
I stepped on that stage in another black silk suit, hair in a sleek bun, the microphone cold in my hand but my voice stronger than it had ever been.
And I said-
“I was erased. I was renamed. I was beaten and silenced and buried alive in someone else’s lies. But I chose to live. I chose to speak. I chose to turn survival into fire. Not for revenge. But for every girl who thought silence was the only way to stay alive. For every woman who thought power belonged to men. And for every victim who never got to choose how their story ended. I’m not here to survive anymore. I’m here to rewrite history.”
When I stepped off stage, the room didn’t just applaud. They stood. They wept. They chanted my name like it was theirs too.
And a week later, I was offered a seat at the UN advisory board.
They wanted me to help build new systems. To reform trafficking, dismantle underground mafias, and expose political abuse at its core. I didn’t say yes for the power.
I said yes because Harmony would’ve never lived to see this chance.
But Celeste will. And I won’t stop until every cage breaks and every girl rises.
THE MOON was low that night. Everything felt still except for the brush in my hand and the scent of fresh paint drying on canvas. I sat in the garden Cassian built for me… stones imported from Granada, walls lined with orchids, tall cypress trees guarding the edges like silent sentries. This was my healing ground now. My sanctuary. No reporters. No fear. No blood.
Just colors.
Cassian walked in quietly like he always did, not to interrupt me, but to exist beside me. He didn’t speak at first. Just sat there and watched me swirl color into something that didn’t hurt. He waited until I put the brush down and turned toward him, eyes soft.
And then he knelt.
