A Caged Songbird's Escape: Into the Arms of a Predator novel Chapter 377

They had seen each other again. Thousands of times. She had waited for him for countless days in the house they once shared. And he had failed her, countless times.

Her wish had come true, and he had been the one to crush it.

Frank no longer blamed anyone else, not even Marcia. He only blamed himself. Why had he ignored the nagging feeling that Marcia's personality didn't match the little girl from his memories? Why had he allowed himself to be convinced by a single jade pendant, making endless excuses for her and indulging her every whim? The night before, when he'd found the glass bottle, he had been consumed by a regret so sharp it felt like madness.

Elissa's gaze fell to the bottle, so perfectly preserved in his hand, and for a moment, she was lost in the past. She remembered. She remembered how desperately she had once wanted to see him again.

But she had grown up. She was no longer the carefree little girl sheltered by her parents. The things she wanted, the person she had become—they were completely different now. That childhood wish had faded away the day she knelt on the sharp gravel in the Murphy family's courtyard. That day, all she had wished for was an escape, for a savior to descend from the heavens and rescue her.

And someone had come. But it hadn't been the man standing before her now.

A bittersweet ache tightened in her chest. She sniffled, forcing the feeling down. "I remember. My mother folded these herself."

"I've never forgotten what you said to me," Frank said, his voice earnest and sincere. "Even if we can't start over, we can at least be friends. Just ordinary friends."

Frank hadn't been a good husband, but he wasn't a truly bad person. Maybe, as Tanya had said, it was because Elissa had never fully trusted him in the first place that their marriage's end hadn't left her with a deep-seated hatred. In the end, their union had served its purpose: for three years, she had been free from the Murphys' control, enjoying a relative freedom she'd never known.

Elissa looked at him, her words direct. "There is absolutely no chance of us starting over."

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