BRIANN P.O.V
Mrs Mason appeared at the entrance in a long brown winter coat,her steps was graceful yet trembling slightly and careful,as though she might lose balance at any moment.The sharp tap of her 14-inch heels echoed through the cold air,and the fitted gown beneath her coat hugged her frame in a way that spoke of money,power and quiet suffering.She looked every inch as a first-class woman,but her eyes told a different story,one carved by guilt.
"I'm…so sorry" She whispered,her voice broke like glass under pressure.
I froze. "You've changed so much" She said,her gaze scanned me slowly. "You've grown so thin…so fragile"
I studied her the way I used to,tracing the fine fabric of her coat,the trembling of her fingers,the way her diamond ring caught the faint winter light.I didn't want to miss a single detail,as if every glance could unlock the truth she was hiding.
"What about Sua?" I asked softly,hope flickered in my chest. "I'm so happy you came back"
She didn't answer.Instead,she pulled me into a sudden,desperate hug,so tight it felt like she was trying to stop the world from falling apart.And then I saw it.
Tears glistening and clinging to her lashes before spilling down her cheeks.Her lips quivered as her breath hitched against my shoulder.
"I'm so sorry" She repeated,her voice kept cracking like a confession.
"For what?" I pulled away,searching her eyes. "Why are you sorry? Is something wrong?"
"Not at all" She lied,forcing a weak smile. "I'm just....scared.Scared of losing you again"
Before I could speak again,the police pushed me forward,their hands was firm,cold and unfeeling.I looked back one last time,and Mrs Mason stood there frozen,unable to follow.Her eyes followed me,wide with fear and regret until the iron doors of the station swallowed me whole.
Inside,the air was heavy and thick with vengeance and despair.My steps slowed as I saw him sitting there across the dimly lit room: Mr. Mason.
His glare burned through me like acid.I felt my throat tightened,my palms damp. He stood up,his voice sliced through the silence.
"Why can't you understand?" He shouted. "You killed her!"
My heart pounded. "I have no reason to be her killer" I said through gritted teeth. "You killed her,just like you killed your wife!"
His jaw clenched,rage boiling under his calm exterior. "You should give up.The cops already have the evidence"
Before I could move,a gun pressed cold against the side of my face.My breath hitched; my knees went weak.Mr Mason approached slowly,every step seemed deliberate,his eyes darkened with satisfaction.I stumbled,falling hard to my knees.
His look said it all: You'll take the fall for this.
He gripped my hair,yanking my head back so I could see his smile which appeared to be so cruel and calculated.His breath brushed against my ear as he whispered. "Briann Adrienno! don't make me do this my way.You'll only end up hurt"
I spat at him,my voice slightly trembled. "You son of a bitch!!"
He didn't flinch.I wanted to fight back,scream,tear the air apart,but fear had already wrapped itself around me.I could only whisper with my voice shaking. "Where's Massilo?"
"Oh.." He sneered,laughing, "He's probably settling into his cell by now.Trespassing has consequences.I warned him" His laughter echoed,deep and hollow,filling the room like thunder.
I glared at him through my tears. "I'd never let you win,Mason.I'd rather have your blood on my hands than your lies on my tongue"
His face twisted with fury. "You leave me no choice" He hissed. "I'll treat you just like I treated your damn sister"
The word hit me like a blade. "My…sister?" My heart cracked,breath faltering.Memories flooded back — her laughter,her betrayal,the wedding night that turned to ashes.Sua. The name I'd buried a thousand times.
Even after everything,part of me still wanted to see her again.But now…I realized that dream was over.And the only thing left was the truth,the kind that destroys everything it touches.
They led me away in chains and the world narrowed to the clank of metal and the hard click of heavy doors.The cell smelled of bleach and old breath,a small rectangle of light from a barred window that felt more like a spotlight on my shame.I waited for the judge to speak my fate; When the gavel fell,it sounded like the last bell for a life already buried.Guilty.Sentence pronounced as if it were a fact pulled from the air,not from the hollow of my chest.
Prison has a way of teaching you the weight of every second.Days stacked into the same gray hours,voices from other cells like distant storms.Nurses patched bruises,guards counted heads,and the world kept moving outside my tiny rectangle of sky.Inside,the pain was quieter,the slow,grinding ache of a future that had been taken from me and would never be returned.
He came often.Mr Mason arrived not with mercy but with spectacle: tailored suits,a perfumed entourage,and that smile that had once pretended to love and now wore contempt like a crown.He sat across from me in the visiting room,the glass between us was a mirror that showed the man who had ruined my life and the woman he had killed.He never stayed to hear me speak.Instead he watched,catalogued the damage and left with a soft,satisfied chuckle.
Between his visits,his men found ways to remind me of his reach.They approached like cold weather with small threats that grew into bruises I hid under long sleeves and smiles hewn from grit.Each beating was precise, meant to teach rather than to kill; a lesson in surrender.They cracked my ribs with careful hands,broke my night into jagged pieces,erased the small kindnesses I had kept hidden like secret prayers.I never let them see the truth in my face.That pain had become a map of stubbornness.
"Confess" They told me once,when the lights hummed and my vision blurred. "Say it was you.Say you did it and this ends" The words were soft as honey,cruel as a noose.I could have saved myself with one word.I could have crawled back into a house and pretended the past hadn't happened.But the thought of trading the truth for a borrowed life felt like spitting on the bones of something that had once been pure.
So I refused.Refusal was a small rebellion,a brittle and dangerous thing,but it was mine.I watched the sun move along the single sliver of sky and counted the days by the way my hands trembled.I whispered Sua's name into the dark until the syllables became a hymn I could neither forget nor stop singing.In the quiet,I replayed the taste of her laugh,the way she'd stood in the wedding dress and the way she had ran.Those memories became both my torment and my shield.
Each visit from Mr Mason ended the same,a slow,theatrical smile,a promise in a voice that tasted like iron.
"You'll take the fall" He'd say as if naming a child. "You will die for what my family deserves" His eyes never wavered,they were cold instruments measuring how much fear he could fit inside me.And every time he left,the men followed with their practiced cruelty,ensuring the letter of his will was carried out on my skin.
I began to feel myself thinning,like paper left in rain.Mrs Angeles stopped coming,my letters went unanswered and the world outside continued its noisy,indifferent spin.
The newspapers printed his version and left out the tremble in the victim's hands,the cameras ignored the hollowness of the rooms he left behind.My name was carved into the prison ledger and under his shadowed authority it felt carved into stone.
At night I laid on the thin mattress and stared at the ceiling,thinking of endings and of the strange mercy of a halted breath.I thought of confession as both a key and a grave.If I'd accepted the false confession,everything might stop.
The beatings and the empty chairs.
But it would be a lie I could never live with.So I held the truth like a cold ember,small and burning,and I let it consume me.
The last time he visited,he leaned forward until the glass fogged with his breath and whispered. "Remember me when you wake.Remember who put you here" His words were less a warning than a benediction.
I felt the world tilt,heavy with the knowledge that this was not punishment alone but a final chapter written by someone else's hand.I closed my eyes and listened to the drip of the fluorescent light,to the distant shuffle of feet and I understood with a clarity that was more terrifying than any doubt that they had already decided how my story would end.
I folded myself around that knowledge and waited,the taste of Sua and the memory of the house keeping me company.If the world wanted me to confess,to die under the weight of his lies,then I would meet the end unbowed.In the dark,I gathered the last of my voice and promised silently,to die with the truth on my lips.