Cassandra waited for Creed for an hour after seeing the doctor. By he arrived, she was half asleep on the couch. Her hands lobbed at the side, but when the door opened, she jumped and slammed the dangling arm on the edge of the seat. With a little wince, she turned and watched the nurse and the detective walk in.

"You must be Creed Moore, and I am beyond pissed."

With a short apology, Creed stepped aside for the nurse to leave. "Sorry for being late, but I work for more than one person, so I had to attend to all the people who came before you."

"Fine." She breezed, offering him a seat, then planted herself right beside him. Her hands folded and tucked at her sides. "Tell me what you found because I have been waiting for ages for all this to finally unravel itself."

"Oh, it would be unravelling right in front of your eyes. This isn't really my forte, so you have to forgive me if finding the right man to suit your request took a while. I would have gotten this to you sooner if it was a thief. Got in touch with my friend, and he ran through your boyfriend's records."

"Not my boyfriend." She added unnecessarily, but with a necessity only she understood. Creed shrugged, uninterested, carrying his smile across his face as he leaned forward to removed files from a bag that sat at his feet.

"Sure, he's not. Anyway, it turns out Harrison Williams landed himself into debt. He owed what totalled over 5.7 million dollars."

Her fingers schemed the surface of the book then watched the pages flood around her. When she spoke, her voice sounded more than millions of miles away, even to her own ears. "He took... he bought a plane ticket to the same place we planned to have our honeymoon."

"Yes. Someplace I am sure you never thought of looking for him. He has lived in Roman City since your wedding and until four months ago. He is married to a young woman named Marianne Williams; she came with one son and, they had twins some years ago. Just until three months ago, his debt was 4.7 million, then it all completely vanished. Paid in full, by Josephine Claymont."

Everything around her began to mesh into one big mess. She spent so long mourning for what she lost, but she didn't even think for a second that Harrison's life was not the same. She had been so angry, so hurt, she wished the same on Harrison a thousand times over. But it wasn't. He got the wife and kids and a nice home.

A big family picture leapt out of the pages to meet her eyes. She found herself tracing the glowing face of a pregnant Marianne while Harrison was on his knees before her. It wasn't filled with blue skies, stained with little patches of sunlight; it was stormy. The clouds were dark, with the streams of gentle rain running through the couples already wet hair.

"You said Josephine paid off his debt?"

Another firm nod. "Yes, then two weeks after, he said goodbye to his wife and landed here in Santa Montes. A lot of calls between the two of them each time you made a call to Harrison or planned to step out even a little bit. She knew you were alone in the house the moment you called Harrison over, so she went in, knocked you out, then left Harrison to find you."

The police had been to Josephine's house, where they found a few recorded conversations from Cassandra's phone. She wasn't sure when, but Josephine had managed to plant a bug on her phone that allowed her to record calls and go through her messages.

"I need..." She trailed off, patting the pocket of her jeans as she looked around the room for her keys; they were in her bag. "I need to step out, call my assistant. You have her number and have her send you the rest of your bill. Thank you so much. Please, can you wait here for the nurse to return before you leave? I don't want him to be alone?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Cassandra rushed out of the room and into her car, twisting the key and slamming the accelerator hard. She remembered the address of his hotel and burned rubber getting there. Thankfully, he was also arriving at the same time she did, turning into the parking lot as she parked her car in the first free spot she found. He didn't see her when he stepped out, walking towards the entrance with his keys jangling in his pocket.

"Harrison!" She screamed, and he turned around, surprised at her presence. She marched over to him, looking up at him with conviction and anger. "You love me, right? You came here to win me back because you realised your mistake."

"Cassandra."

"What?" She sighed, lifting the picture of his family to his face, and smiling impishly when more shock registered. "What's wrong? Profess your love again, please. Say it to me, one more time, that no one will love me as you did. Don't be shy; open your mouth and say it."

"Where did you get this?"

"The same place I got the truth. Now, I am going to give you the opportunity to tell me the truth. All of it. What does Josephine have to do with this? Don't dare insult me by lying to my face one more time. Start talking."

"Marianne had some debts when we met." H.W started, looking down at his palms. "We had the kids to take care of, and Mathew, our oldest, is sick, asthma and some other diseases. He needed a lot of medical attention, so my job wasn't enough to pay for both the debt and the medical bills."

"Josephine paid it all off?"

H.W nodded, inhaling heavily. "The debtors told me everything was done, and she introduced herself the next day. She held it over my head with threats to make me agree to help her with something. I didn't know what it was until she handed me Santa Montes tickets and told me the plan."

"And you agreed."

"She had the debtors, still threatening me. They knew where I lived, my wife, my children's school. I had no choice." He sniffed, scratching behind his ears nervously with a shrug. "She told me to insist that I wanted to be with you until you left Harrison alone. once you broke up with him, she would have the debtors leave my family alone."

"And you agreed. You said yes. You got on that flight, flew all the way over here, and tried to ruin my life once again. You followed us everywhere, tried to verbally attack Harrison. Insisted on meeting with me and telling me the real reason why you left all those years ago. All of that, just so Josephine could come out on top. So she could end up with my boyfriend."

"I am sorry."

"Why did you leave the first time?" She asked, bracing her hands on her hips. "Tell me."

"I was afraid the marriage would be a mistake. I wasn't as excited as you were; I wasn't sure towards the end that I was making the right decision. I didn't want to hurt you down the line or have us end up living miserably."

"So instead of telling me this, you left. You couldn't even send a text to someone, anyone, to stop me from getting to that choice. After I have moved on from the shame, the disgrace I suffered, you come back...once again, to ruin my life."

"I didn't have a choice."

Cassandra scoffed, looking around them as she asked. "Did you ever love me?"

"Of course."

"Lies." She threw back, shoving her fingers into her hair and shaking her head in disbelief. "If you ever loved me, then you wouldn't have come back to ruin my life again. You would have at least had remnants of that love to keep you from destroying the little peace and joy I tried to build."

"But, you didn't fall for it." He argued, and she laughed.

"And if I had? If I had broken up with Harrison, to get back with you. If it had worked, how would you have handled that in the end? Sorry, Cassandra, I am actually married with kids and still love my wife, by the way. Tough luck, see you next time. You would have ruined my life twice. Twice, and you can still stand there to tell me that I mattered to you. You are a bastard."

H.W looked around and instantly grabbed her shoulders in a grip that made her wince as she struggled to get free. She grunted as he dug his fingers into her skin and shook her till teeth rattled. He was screaming at her; she was so confused at his actions that his words didn't sink into her mind before she began to struggle. What right did he have to be angry or upset? She wasn't the one who told him to leave. She didn't ask him to fall into debt.

"Let me go." She commanded.

"What are you really angry at! What? Tell me. Say it."

"Are you deaf? I said, let me go this instant."

At that point, they were screaming at each other and struggling in front of the hotel gates. H.W didn't back down from her; he chose instead to be the aggressor from that point. Pushing her shoulders and stepping into her space, he made her move back, but she didn't drop her eyes from his. They were gathering a small crowd, yet his tone got higher.

The question drove nails into her head, and she groaned, hunched over in front of him with a screaming building up in her chest. Why was she angry? Her head hurt from trying to explain it even to herself. It was more than ridiculous when she thought about it. She left Harrison in the hospital with an egoistic stranger just so she could argue with H.W.

"Answer me!" he roared, showing her one last time and getting a snazzy slap in return, and her loud reply followed soon after.

"I'm angry at myself." It was the truth, she realised, one that hurt more than anything in the world. "I am angry at myself for being such a fool all these years. I hurt myself on your behalf when you had given me no sign that you were coming back. I thought that if I stopped feeling something, I would shield myself from crying for all the hurt you brought to me, but it was so stupid and when I realised that, it could be too late. Harrison is the man I love, but still, I hold on to you and your stupid memories, they are the chains I can't break free from, and I hate that. I hate myself for losing the opportunity to make a man like Harrison happy, to make myself happy. I lost it all because of a choice that you made, and that pisses me off."

"I would never have asked you to do such a thing. While I was away, all I ever prayed to God for was that you remained happy. That you would get over what I did and move on from me."

"I. Am. Angry. That's just it, just angry. For being so stupid and so foolish in doing something so easy and painless. Forgetting you. That's all I needed to do, but instead, I ruined my life and that of Harrison. Look what I did?" Cassandra wiped her tears with the back of her hand and then spread them at her sides. "Go home, Harrison. You have a wife and kids that need you."

He shrugged, tears at the back of his eyes as he pushed his fingers into his front pockets. "I can't. Josephine is out on the lose, but I know you know she knows where we are. If I leave now, thinking it's safe... she'd keep to her promise and hurt my family. You may not believe she is completely dangerous, but I know she is. That woman has no boundaries at all. You make a mistake underestimating her psych."

Cassandra shook her head, tired of all the fighting; every drop of energy was out of her system. The venom that fuelled her for two years was out of her system, she had lost all her drive to do anything more than walk away.

Without a word, she turned around and began walking away, swiftly sidestepping the questioning glasses of the hotel residents then sliding into the car. Not sparing H.W another glance, she gunned out of the hotel gate, turning her car towards the road for the hospital. Just then, her phone buzzed.

"Hit me, Jacob."

The next words blew the gas out of her system, sending her heart into overdrive. "Harrison was taken into the operating room because there was a complication with his brain or something, and he nearly went into cardiac arrest. You want to get here, fast."

The rest of the call went unheard as she shot past other cars and counted down the seconds till she got to the hospital.