Chapter 115 Heart's Anchor

• Rachel POV
• The Beverly Hills mansion was a gilded cage, its opulent walls and hushed corridors a cruel mockery of the vibrant chaos of Miami, a city I ached for with every fiber of my being, its neon lights flickering in my memory, its salty air a phantom that clung to me like Jeremy’s scent—cedar and musk, a ghost that haunted my dreams, my waking hours, my every breath. I lay on the bed, my body frail, a fragile shell still mending from the gunshot wound that had nearly stolen me from him, the scar on my side a tender, throbbing reminder of Celine’s malice, the pistol’s deafening crack, the blood that had soaked my shirt, warm and relentless, pooling beneath me as I fought to hold on.
• The simple white dress I wore, soft and flowing, its cotton whispering against my skin, felt like a shroud, its purity a taunt against the lovesickness that consumed me, a fever that burned hotter than any infection, a longing no medicine could soothe. I held a book in my trembling hands, its leather cover cool, its pages unturned, the words blurring into a haze as my thoughts drifted, as they always did, to Jeremy—his smile by the pool, crinkling his green eyes, his voice crackling through the jail’s phone, steady despite the bars between us, his love a fire that had kept me fighting, even now, in this prison dressed as a sanctuary, its luxury a lie that couldn’t mask my captivity.