Chapter 37 - THE SHATTERED GLASS
The words didn't make sense. Hannah heard them, she saw Elena’s hands sign them, but her brain violently rejected the information.
"That's insane," Hannah gasped, a nervous, hysterical laugh escaping her lips. She turned to Daniel, her eyes silently begging him to end the cruel joke. "Dad, tell them they're insane. My mother died when I was nineteen. I remember her. I remember growing up with you."
"Your adoptive mother loved you," Daniel signed, his chest heaving with sobs. "But she wasn't your blood, Hannah. Elena Vale brought you to me when you were an infant. Gideon’s syndicate was closing in on her. She knew that if they found out she had a daughter, they would use you to control her. She begged me to take you, to hide you, and to raise you as my own."
Hannah’s legs gave out. She collapsed onto the marble floor, the diamond engagement ring catching the faint light of the exit signs. She couldn't breathe. The air in the atrium had turned to solid glass.
She looked up at Caleb.
The man she loved. The man she had fought for. The man whose bed she shared, whose future she had promised to build.
Caleb was backed against the wall of the atrium, his hands covering his mouth, his eyes blown wide with a sheer, unadulterated trauma that transcended physical pain. He was shaking uncontrollably, his gaze locked on Hannah as if she had suddenly transformed into a monster.
"Caleb," Hannah tried to sign, but her hands were paralyzed.
Caleb couldn't look at her. He couldn't process the violation, the absolute, catastrophic desecration of everything they had built. He turned away, his hands flying to his head, and let out a sound—a raw, guttural, agonizing cry that tore through the silent atrium.
Alexander moved instantly. He crossed the room in three massive strides, grabbing Caleb and pulling him into a fierce, protective embrace. "I've got you, Caleb. I've got you," Alexander murmured, shielding his brother from the room, acting as a physical anchor for a man whose reality had just been incinerated.
Hannah knelt on the floor, staring at her own hands. She felt dirty. She felt a sickening, suffocating revulsion pooling in her stomach.
She looked at Daniel. The man she had trusted her entire life.
"You knew," Hannah whispered, her voice a hollow, haunting echo. "You watched me fall in love with him. You watched him buy this ring. You stood in the front row when we graduated. You knew I was sleeping with my own brother, and you didn't say a word."
"I was trying to protect you," Daniel signed, reaching out to her.
"Don't touch me!" Hannah screamed, slapping his hand away with a violence she didn't know she possessed. She scrambled backward, her chest heaving as she ripped the diamond engagement ring off her finger.
May you like
She threw the ring across the atrium. It hit the marble floor with a sharp, terrible clink, spinning into the darkness.
Without looking back at Caleb, without looking at Elena, Hannah turned and sprinted out the heavy glass doors, disappearing into the freezing Chicago night.
