Chapter 33
Not flashy. Not loud. Just him, kneeling in the earth like it meant something more than power or tradition. He held up a black diamond ring, simple and bold, the kind you wear not to be owned–but to be reminded that you chose each other through war.
He said, “I didn’t bring you peace just to hold you safe. I brought it so you could rise and never look back. I never let go, Celeste. Not even when the world told me you were dead.”
I didn’t cry. I didn’t tremble. I looked him in the eyes and said yes… not because I needed saving, not because I was broken anymore, but because I loved him with everything that survived. I chose him. I loved him. And I would build a future with him on my own terms.
We didn’t throw a party. No press. Just wine and candles and Aziel stealing cake later that night.
And speaking of Aziel? He became more than my reason to survive. He became my partner on purpose.
I opened a therapy–art school for special needs children a month later. Quiet opening. No flashy headlines. Just families who’d been forgotten, kids who’d been shoved into corners, and survivors who needed color the way I did.
We named it The Light Project–Aziel chose it. He said, “Because when you paint, you make light even when you’re sad.”
The first mural was his. A big one on the side of the building. He painted two hands reaching out of fire, meeting in the sky. He said that it was me and him. That he wasn’t scared anymore because I came back.
I watched the kids paint. I watched them laugh. And I realized that after all the ashes and war and blood and survival, I didn’t just get revenge.
I got rebirth.
And this time, no one could take it away.
After a year, I released a film.
But I never called it mine.
Not in the interviews. Not on the red carpets. Not even when the festival audience stood up for twelve straight minutes and clapped with tears in their eyes. It wasn’t about glory. It wasn’t about proving that I’d won.
It was for Harmony.
The girl who endured.
The airl who bled in silence while the world kissed her abuser’s rina.
My Husband Begged for My Love after Destroying Me
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The girl who forgot how to speak her own name because it was safer that way.
I sat in the front row during the premiere, hand in Cassian’s, and when the credits rolled and my name came up, I watched him swallow hard and drop his head. His chest shook once. Then twice. And that was the first time I saw the man who led armies for me cry-
not because we lost, but because we survived.
The dedication was simple. I wrote it myself and refused to change a word:
“For the girl who endured. For the woman who rose.”
The world called it brave. Some called it a revolution. I didn’t care what they called it. I just knew I finally told the truth without choking.
After that, we disappeared.
Not for secrecy. Not out of fear. Just… because we could.
Cassian bought us a beach villa in southern Spain. Quiet coast. No bodyguards pacing the balcony. No cameras. Just sun, water, wild dogs that followed Aziel around like they were his personal army, and the scent of olive trees everywhere.
He brought a piano and told me to play when my hands shook. I brought journals and filled them with words I used to swallow. Aziel painted shells. The sea was the only noise that ever raised its voice. I didn’t feel hunted anymore. I felt human.
That’s where I wrote my book.
It took months.
I scratched out the title ten times before I settled on it.
“Names I Survived.”
Because it was never about reclaiming just one. It was all of them.
Wife. Puppet. Property. Liar. Crazy. Bitch. Ghost.
I burned every one of those names on the page until I found myself again.
And when I finished the last chapter, I stood outside on the shore with Cassian behind me and Aziel throwing stones into the surf, and I wrote the final line in ink that didn’t tremble anymore.
“My name is Celeste. I’m no longer afraid.”
And I meant it. With every scar. With every name. With every breath I had left.
- N. D
Chapter 33
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