Woke Up and Left the Cage of My Marriage 14
Chapter 14
Some people claimed they’d spotted her on the streets of Paris, even more radiant than before. Others said she’d joined an international aid group, spotted in war zones. Still others insisted she’d started a new life with a new identity, like a heron soaring free-she’d truly left her past cage behind and flown into the vast sky that belonged only to her.
Late into the night, the light in Ethan’s study always burned. His world map was covered in marked locations, each one added and crossed out.
The search was like looking for a needle in a haystack. Hope slipped through his fingers. Day after day, regret and despair grew inside him-a pain so sharp and relentless, it was like torture that never ended, punishing him every single night.
That’s when it finally hit him. The thing Natalie destroyed wasn’t just the old Fletcher estate. She’d destroyed the prison of his own heart, one he’d been trapped in without realizing it.
Cleaning up the estate ruins took days. Charred wood and shattered bricks were carted off by the truckload. The empty ground left behind was bare, like an ugly scar carved onto the Fletcher family’s century-old legacy.
One of the household staff -a woman who’d worked for the Fletchers almost thirty years- found Ethan at the edge of the ruins, lost in thought, and slipped over when no one else was watching.
She clutched a small wooden box, wrapped in a clean handkerchief. Tears spilled down her face before she even spoke.
“Sir…” Her voice broke as she handed over the box. “This… This was found in the ashes where the bird cage used to be in the back garden. There’s only a few feathers left now… That dove- it was the last gift Ms. Fletcher’s mother gave her before she died. She raised it from when she was little, for ten whole years… She treasured it so much, talked to it every day, fed it the very best grain…”
Ethan took the box, his movements mechanical, and opened it.
Inside were a few white feathers, singed at the edges by fire but still soft and pure.
They were light as air, but his hand suddenly felt as heavy as stone, weighed down by the sorrow packed into those tiny remains.
The maid wiped her eyes with her sleeve and went on, her words tumbling out. “That day, Ms. Grant made pigeon consommé out of it… After Ms. Fletcher woke up in the hospital and found out, she didn’t cry about her injuries. It was for the bird… She hugged that empty cage and cried herself unconscious, over and over again. She woke up and kept crying… I’ve never seen Ms. Fletcher like that before… It was like her heart had been ripped out…”
Chapter 14
Ethan’s fingers brushed those soft feathers. Somehow, even across time and space, he could feel the agony that had torn through Natalie in that moment.
She hadn’t cried for the pain of the skin graft. She hadn’t cried for being punished by the family. She’d cried for a bird-a bird she loved like family.
What had he said then?
“It’s just a pigeon.”
Cold. Careless. Dismissive.
The memory stabbed through his chest, sharp enough to bring him to his knees.
He snapped the box shut, clutched it tight in his fist, spun around, and almost ran to his car, his voice rough as gravel when he barked at the driver, “Go to Central Hospital. Now!”
He sped all the way there, storming into the hospital, and made straight for the office of the surgeon who’d done Natalie’s skin graft.
He didn’t even bother to knock-just shoved open the door. The doctor, halfway through writing up a file, jumped in surprise.
“Mr. Fletcher?” The doctor got up quickly, startled.
Ethan’s chest heaved, eyes bloodshot and wild. He glared at the doctor, voice strangled with
panic and something close to rage. “Back then… when you took the skin from her arm… Did she
Did it hurt?”
…
The doctor shrank from the force of that stare. He paused, then dropped his gaze, lips pressed together before answering in a low, careful voice, “Mr. Fletcher… Once the sedative wore off, the pain would have been… extreme. Ms. Fletcher… she was shaking all over, covered in cold sweat that soaked right through her hospital gown… But… she never made a sound. She just bit down and endured it.”
Not a sound…
Ethan staggered back, hitting the doorframe behind him.
He could see it now-Natalie curled up in the hospital bed, skin white as a sheet, lips bitten until they bled, but still refusing to make a sound
And what was he doing back then? Standing outside the door, speaking gently-more gently than he ever had-comforting Vivian, the one who’d brought Natalie to this.
He’d even promised he would always protect her.
He turned and rushed out of the hospital.
Chapter 14
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This time, he wasn’t the cool, collected head of the Fletcher family anymore.
He was like a wounded lion, radiating danger and fury, driving full-throttle back to the villa where Vivian was staying. A servant tried to stop him, and he shoved them aside without a second thought.
He kicked open the door to Vivian’s bedroom.
Vivian was sitting at her vanity, staring at the fading scars on her arm in the mirror. The sudden crash made her whirl around, eyes wide with fear.
When she saw Ethan, she immediately put on her usual fragile act, tears shimmering in her eyes. “Ethan… what’s wrong?”
Chapter 15
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