Your Voice Still Blooms in the Gardens of My Quiet Madness by Selin Aras Thorn

“The Chains of Love and Rebirth”

In the cold, glittering city of Ravenwood, one name was whispered with fear and fascination — Evelyn Shaw, the woman who belonged to Dominic Vance, the ruthless CEO of Vance Global Holdings. Everyone knew her story, or at least, the version that Dominic allowed them to see.

Once, Evelyn had been a bright, kind-hearted woman with dreams, love, and a future. She had a boyfriend — gentle, warm, and devoted. But all of that ended the day Dominic decided he wanted her. Powerless to resist him, her boyfriend accepted Dominic’s offer of a hundred million dollars to disappear from her life forever. That betrayal was the first chain that bound her to Dominic Vance.

Evelyn resisted at first. She refused his advances, refused to yield to his wealth or his authority. But Dominic Vance was not a man accustomed to hearing the word no. When persuasion failed, he turned to force — locking her inside his sprawling estate, using both power and passion to break down her defenses.

He would visit her night after night, until exhaustion and despair left her too weak to leave her bed. The world called it obsession; he called it love.

Evelyn hated him — with a rage that consumed her — so much that she once grabbed a knife and lunged at him, slashing his neck. Blood spilled, but Dominic didn’t strike back. Instead, he merely wiped the wound with his fingers, smirking as he said,

“Go on, Evelyn. Keep stabbing. If you can’t kill me, then you’ll have to love me.”

That sentence marked the start of a dangerous love story — one built on possession, obsession, and torment. Ravenwood’s elite whispered behind closed doors that Dominic was insane, that he would destroy anyone who dared to touch Evelyn. Yet when it came to her, his madness seemed to soften into worship. He would kneel to put shoes on her feet. He took a bullet meant for her. He even sang her favorite song at a public gala, humbling himself before the world.

Slowly, painfully, Evelyn’s frozen heart began to thaw. She started to believe that beneath his cruelty lay a man capable of love — that his twisted devotion was, in its own way, real. For three years, she tried to love him back. She convinced herself that they had both changed.

But everything shattered in the third year of their marriage.

---

The Arrival of Amber Rhodes

One day, Dominic’s business associate introduced him to a young woman named Amber Rhodes — bright-eyed, delicate, and pure, the very reflection of who Evelyn once used to be before the darkness of Dominic’s love consumed her.

From the moment Amber entered his life, everything changed. Dominic’s attention, once entirely hers, drifted elsewhere. He began spending long nights away, and when he returned, his eyes held a new light — one that wasn’t for Evelyn.

Then came the day he brought Amber home. Evelyn still remembered the look in his eyes — calm, casual, detached — as he uttered the words that tore her heart in two:

“Even ancient kings had their mistresses and countless affairs. I’m worth more than an empire. Having two wives isn’t unreasonable.”

The world froze. Evelyn stared at him, trembling, her heart bleeding from the betrayal.

“You promised me, Dominic,” she whispered. “You said you’d only ever love me.”

But Dominic didn’t care. His arrogance was boundless. He treated her outrage like childish jealousy.

In despair, Evelyn broke down completely. She smashed vases, tore paintings, screamed until her throat went raw — yet nothing could move him. Desperate to save what little dignity she had left, she sought Amber in secret.

On her knees, Evelyn offered Amber a fortune, begging her to leave Dominic alone.

But Amber wasn’t as innocent as she looked. She took the check and went straight to Dominic, weeping softly in his arms like a fragile, pitiful angel. Her act sealed Evelyn’s fate.

---

The Warehouse of Death

That same day, Dominic summoned Evelyn to an abandoned harbor warehouse, where her parents were suspended high above a roaring industrial grinder, the blades spinning like the jaws of a monster.

Her blood turned to ice.

“Dominic, what are you doing?! Let them go!” she screamed.

But Dominic only looked at her with those same cold, merciless eyes.

“Say the word,” he said softly. “Tell me that Amber can stay, and I’ll let them go.”

Evelyn’s world collapsed. This man — the man she had once loved, the man who had promised to protect her — was using her parents’ lives as leverage to force her obedience.

Her voice trembled, broken by hysteria and disbelief.

“Dominic! Do you even remember how you took me? You said you wanted only me! You said you loved me! Has it all been a lie?!”

He frowned, as if her words annoyed him.

“When did I say I stopped loving you?” he replied coldly. “I still love you, Evelyn. I just also love Amber. There’s room in my heart for both of you.”

To him, it was a simple truth. To Evelyn, it was pure horror.

Then Dominic began to count — slow, deliberate, cruel:

“Ten… nine…”

The ropes holding her parents began to lower.

“Stop! Please, don’t!” Evelyn screamed, thrashing against the guards holding her back.

But the countdown continued.

“Eight… seven…”

Tears blinded her.

“Dominic, I hate you! I hate you!”

Still, his voice never wavered.

“Six… five…”

The deafening roar of the grinder filled her ears as her parents’ feet drew dangerously close to the blades.

“Four… three…”

Her screams turned to sobs, raw and wordless.

“Two…”

At last, she broke.

“I’ll do it! I’ll do it! Let her stay! Please! Just stop! Please!”

Dominic raised his hand, and the ropes halted.

A small, cruel smile touched his lips.

“See? That wasn’t so hard. Why make it ugly, Evelyn? I wouldn’t want to hurt the people you love.”

He ordered his men to release her parents. But fate, or perhaps Dominic’s own arrogance, intervened — the rope snapped.

In an instant, her parents plummeted into the grinder.

“Nooooo!”

The sound that followed wasn’t human. It was pain incarnate — the sound of a soul being torn apart. Blood splattered. Silence fell.

Evelyn collapsed, her mind shattering. Her body convulsed, and blood poured from her mouth. Her last thought before darkness consumed her was a single, agonizing question:

Why did I ever love you?

---

Rebirth

When Evelyn opened her eyes again, she was lying beneath a crystal chandelier, wrapped in soft Egyptian cotton sheets. Her surroundings were painfully familiar — the master bedroom of the Vance Estate.

She bolted upright, trembling. Her heart raced as she checked her reflection, her hands, the phone beside her bed. The date on the screen stunned her.

She had gone back in time — to the exact day Dominic first brought Amber home.

Tears streamed down her face. She remembered her parents’ screams, their blood, their faces before they died. Rage, grief, and horror surged within her like a storm.

But beneath it all was one burning realization:

This time, things will be different.

She would never love Dominic again. Never trust him. Never forgive him.

All she wanted now was to save her parents and escape.

Throwing on a coat, she ran from the mansion, tears mixing with the cold morning air.

When she reached her family’s modest home, her mother was pulling cookies from the oven, laughing softly with her father. The sight broke Evelyn’s heart all over again. She rushed to them, hugging them both tightly.

“Dad! Mom!” she cried, trembling.

Her mother frowned in concern.

“Sweetheart, what’s wrong? Did you have a bad dream?”

Evelyn couldn’t tell them the truth — that she had watched them die. All she could do was hold them tighter, swearing to herself that this time, she would not let Dominic destroy them.

When she finally calmed down, she looked at them with burning determination.

“Dad, Mom… I’m divorcing Dominic. After that, we’re leaving Ravenwood City and never coming back.”

Her parents were stunned.

“Evelyn,” her father said gently, “Dominic may have been impulsive when he first pursued you, but he’s treated you well these past years. Everyone knows how much he loves you. He even took a bullet for you once, and gave up a billion-dollar deal just because you wanted to see the Northern Lights.”

Her mother added softly, “You must have fought. Don’t make decisions in anger.”

But Evelyn’s voice cracked as she cut them off.

“It’s not a fight! You don’t understand — I have to leave him!”

They couldn’t possibly comprehend the trauma she carried, the blood that stained her memories. So she begged, her tears falling freely.

“Please, just trust me this once. I have to leave him.”

Seeing her desperation, her parents finally agreed.

---

The Plan to Escape

Once Evelyn had secured their trust, she immediately began to act.

First, she went to the Ravenwood Police Department to cancel her family’s household registration — a process that would erase their official identities.

Second, she applied to legally change all their names, preparing a new life far from Dominic’s reach.

She knew him too well. Dominic Vance was not the type of man who would ever sign a divorce paper. To him, marriage was ownership. The only way to be free of him was to die in the eyes of the law — to vanish completely.

The process would take several days. Until then, she had no choice but to return to the Vance Estate and pretend nothing had changed.

When she stepped through the massive doors, the sight before her nearly made her sick.

Dominic stood in the living room, his arm around Amber’s waist, murmuring softly against her ear. They looked like lovers in a painting — beautiful, poisonous, and unreal.

When Dominic saw Evelyn, he lifted his gaze lazily, his tone casual, almost dismissive.

“Evelyn, come here.”

He pulled Amber closer and said the same words he had spoken in her previous life:

“This is Amber. She’s going to live here from now on. I love you both. My fortune is enough for two women. I want peace between you, and I want both of you by my side for the rest of my life.”

In her last life, those words had destroyed her. She had screamed, wept, and begged him to choose.

But this time was different.

Evelyn met his eyes, calm and composed, her expression unreadable. Then, slowly, she smiled — a faint, cold smile that sent a chill down his spine.

“All right,” she said softly. “I agree.”

For the first time, Dominic couldn’t read her. He didn’t realize that behind that serene smile lay a vow forged in blood and grief — a vow to end their story on her terms.

In this life, Evelyn Shaw would not be the victim.

She would be the storm.