---- Chapter 19 Harper Griffin POV: Adler led me to a place that smelled of death. It was an abandoned underground factory on the industrial outskirts of the city, a place of rust and shadows. The air was thick with the cloying stench of decay and human waste, so potent it made my eyes water. "My grand apology," he announced, his voice echoing eerily in the cavernous space. He gestured toward a heavy, rusted iron door. He slid the door open, and a scene of pure degradation was revealed. In a filthy, cage-like room, two women, their hair matted and their clothes in rags, were fighting over the carcass of a rat. It was Juliana and Adler' s mother. They were no longer the polished, arrogant socialites | knew. They were feral animals, reduced to their most basic, ugly instincts. They snarled and clawed at each other, their faces streaked with grime and desperation. | felt a wave of nausea. This wasn't justice. This was madness. ---- "This is your apology?" | asked, my voice trembling with a mixture of horror and disgust. "They hurt you," Adler said, his tone one of calm, chilling reason. "So! am making them suffer as you suffered. As your parents suffered. An eye for an eye." Juliana, hearing his voice, crawled toward him, her hands outstretched. "Adler, please," she sobbed, clutching at the leg of his trousers. "I'm sorry. Let me go. Please." He kicked her away without a second glance. She crumpled to the ground, coughing up blood. He then turned his attention to his own mother, who was cowering in the corner. "And you," he spat, "you taught me that weakness must be purged. You told me to lock her parents away. This is the lesson you taught me, Mother." He pulled a lighter from his pocket. In the corner of the room was a pile of something | hadn't noticed before. It was the wreckage of his photo shrine to Juliana. "I'm destroying the past, Harper," he said, his eyes gleaming with a feverish light. He flicked the lighter on, the small flame dancing in the darkness. "For you. I'll burn the whole world down for you, if that's what it takes. We can start over. Just the two of us." He tossed the lighter onto the pile of photos. The flames erupted, casting flickering, demonic shadows on the walls. ---- "Just say you'll take me back," he pleaded, his voice cracking. "Just give me one more chance." The two women in the cage screamed, a mixture of terror and rage. It was a symphony of insanity, conducted by the madman who had once been my husband. And he expected me to be grateful.