Chapter 21
Chapter 21
After witnessing Sienna’s happiness, Ryan flew back to Boston.
Winter in Massachusetts felt brutal. Ryan had been holed up in his family’s Beacon Hill townhouse for three straight days, drinking everything in sight.
The marble floors were littered with empty bottles – Dom Pérignon, Jack Daniel’s, whatever Postmates would deliver. The Persian rug had cigarette burns scattered across it like ugly confetti.
He was passed out on the Italian leather sofa in a shirt that hadn’t been changed since Tuesday, five o’clock shadow covering his jaw, eyes so bloodshot they looked like road maps.
Downtown Boston twinkled through the floor–to–ceiling windows, all those lights just making the darkness inside feel worse.
“Jesus Christ, Ryan!”
His dad stormed in, surveyed the wreckage, and lost his shit completely.
“I told you that Nina girl was poison, but you wouldn’t listen! Now Sienna’s engaged to someone else and you’re having some kind of breakdown. Grow the fuck up!”
His mom followed behind, picking up bottles with shaking hands. “You had everything with that girl. She adored you since kindergarten, and you just… threw it away…”
Ryan made this horrible sound, somewhere between crying and choking.
He’d fucked up the best thing in his life for a manipulative psycho who’d played him like a violin.
The hole in his chest felt like someone had taken a blowtorch to his ribcage. Alcohol was the only thing that made it stop screaming.
After his parents finally left in disgust, the house went tomb–quiet.
Around 2 AM, he heard the back door’s security system beep. Someone had bypassed the lock.
Nina.
She looked like she’d crawled out of hell – skeletal, arm in a cast, face still mottled with yellow–green bruises.
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Chapter 21
After Ryan’s guys had broken her hands, she’d been committed to McLean Hospital. But the internet hate mob had found her even there, doxxing her family and sending death threats. She’d finally escaped during a shift change.
She was gripping a kitchen knife that looked like she’d pulled it from a restaurant dumpster.
The living room reeked of alcohol and desperation.
Ryan was slumped over the coffee table, mumbling something incoherent.
Nina crept closer and finally made out what he was saying: “Sienna… don’t leave… I’m sorry…”
He looked up with glassy, unfocused eyes and suddenly smiled – this heartbreaking, drunk smile with tears streaming down his face. “Sienna! You came back! I knew you’d come back…”
He stumbled toward her, arms outstretched, completely wasted. “Sienna, I fucked up… I fucked up so bad… we can fix this, right? I’ll give you everything…”
He pulled her into this desperate hug, rambling about how sorry he was, how much he loved her, how they could start over.
Nina felt his arms around her, heard him whispering Sienna’s name over and over like a prayer, felt the warmth in his embrace that was meant for someone else entirely.
Something inside her just… snapped.
“I’M NOT SIENNA!”
She shoved him away and drove the knife straight into his chest. “LOOK AT ME! I’m Nina! I ruined my entire life for you! How can you still only think about her?!”
Ryan’s smile froze on his face. He looked down at the knife sticking out of his chest, blood soaking through his white shirt in expanding circles.
He didn’t seem to feel the pain, just stared at Nina in confusion and whispered, “Sienna?”
That did it. Nina completely lost her mind.
She yanked out the knife and stabbed him again. “DIE! If I can’t have you, nobody can!”
Blood splattered across her face as she knocked over a bottle of vodka and lit it with Ryan’s expensive lighter.
Flames shot up instantly, spreading to the curtains and furniture.
Chapter 21
“We’re going to hell together, Ryan!” she shrieked, sitting in the growing fire. “Now you’ll have to look at me forever…”
The mansion started burning around them, Nina laughing like the psychopath she’d always been.
Flames devoured the entire townhouse, thick black smoke pouring into the Boston night.
Ryan lay on the burning floor, consciousness fading, his vision filling with memories of Sienna.
She was standing under cherry blossoms in his mind, smiling and reaching out her hand like they were kids again, before everything went wrong.
“Sienna…” he whispered with his last breath, actually smiling as everything went dark.
By the time fire trucks and ambulances screamed through Beacon Hill, the mansion was completely engulfed.
Paramedics dragged Nina from the wreckage – burned, broken, but still alive and completely insane.
“He’s mine!” she was shrieking as cops cuffed her. “Nobody can take him away! Sienna, I finally won! I finally fucking won!”
They loaded her into the ambulance, still ranting about victory while staring at the burning ruins of everything she’d destroyed in her obsession.
Ryan was found barely clinging to life, rushed to Mass General in critical condition.
The whole sick story that had started with childhood obsession and spiraled into complete destruction was finally over.
In the most brutal way possible
