My Billionaire Boyfriend Went Mad After I Left

---- Chapter 16 'Two years later. Provence, Eglise Notre-Dame. 'May in the south of France. The scent of lavender mixed with the old sandalwood of the church, fermenting in the sunlight into the smell of happiness. The organ blasted the "Wedding March." I wore a simple satin gown, holding a bouquet of freshly picked white lilies of the valley. I took Gabriel's arm and walked slowly down the aisle scattered with rose petals. Gabriel was my doctor. He was also the gentlest man alive.

During the days when PTSD tormented me until I couldn't even breathe on my own, he stayed by my side day and night, using patience and love to piece the shattered fragments of me back together. His hands were warm and dry-unlike Julian's, which always carried a suffocating desire for control. Beside him, I finally learned what it meant to feel "safe." "1 do." When the priest asked that sacred question, 1 looked into Gabriel's clear blue eyes and gave my promise with absolute certainty.

'The moment we exchanged rings, I felt a scorching, desolate gaze burning through the layers of guests, landing right on my spine. Subconsciously, I turned around and looked toward the dim shadows in the last row of the church. There sat a black wheelchair. Init sat a skeletal man. The shooting on Christmas Eve hadn't taken Julian Thorne's life, but the bullet had shattered his third vertebra, robbing him of the ability to stand forever.

---- 'The business emperor who once commanded Wall Street with arrogance was now trapped in this cold metal chair, needing a caretaker's help for even the most basic bodily functions. But he dressed decently today. It was an ill-fitting old tuxedo-I recognized it. It was the custom suit he had made for our wedding three years ago. Back then, he was high-spirited, complaining the bow tie wasn't perfect. Now, the clothes hung empty on his frame, looking like a shroud that didn't belong to him. Even from this distance, I could see the heartbreaking redness in his eyes.

He sat quietly in the corner like a rat in a gutter, watching me in my wedding dress with greedy, desperate eyes. Watching me smile. Watching me be kissed by another man. Watching me obtain the happiness he could never give me. Seraphina had been extradited and sentenced to life imprisonment, rotting in a windowless cell. And Julian? He had locked himself in a different prison called "Regret." The moment our eyes met, he panicked. He instinctively tried to turn his wheelchair to run, terrified to let me see him in this crippled, pathetic state.

But he was too weak; his hands fumbled with the wheels, and he nearly tipped the chair over. Finally, he stopped. He didn't dodge anymore. Across the crowd, across the unbridgeable chasm of life and death between us, in this sacred moment, he gave me a smile that was uglier than crying. His lips moved. No sound came out, but I read the silent words: "Happy wedding, Elara."" Tears slid down his sunken cheeks, dripping onto the legs that would ---- never walk again. It was the deathly silence of total resignation. He finally understood that his greatest punishment wasn't death, but living.

Living with clear memories and a broken body, spending the long rest of his life replaying over and over how he personally destroyed the love of his life, until he rotted away in loneliness. I looked away. My heart remained as calm as a stagnant pond. No hate. No love. No pity. "what's wrong, darling?" Gabriel gently wiped a tear from the corner of my eye. "Too emotional?" T squeezed his hand and smiled at him, a smile of genuine release. "No, nothing." "I just saw someone who died a long time ago." The church bells rang, and white doves took flight.

Amidst the cheers of the guests, I leaned in and kissed my husband. Behind the laughter and joy, the sound of wheelchair tires crushing the stone path was harsh. *Squeak- Squeak-* Julian Thorne, all alone, turned his back to the light and rolled slowly into the endless darkness outside the church. This time, he had lost the right to ever look back.