Reborn, I Let His Childhood Sweetheart Pay for Her Crimes

I had given up my seat.

I thought, even with Ella’s dramatics, that would be the end of it.

But barely an hour into the flight, a fresh wave of raised voices came from the front cabin.

Before I could process it, Cassio was striding down the aisle toward the galley.

He found me and grabbed my wrist, his grip like a vise, pulling me back to the seat area.

“Serena. It’s your seat. You decide. Who sits in it? Ella, who is sick? Or this… this peasant?”

I looked at Ella, now installed in my former seat.

She was clutching her stomach, moaning.

“Cass… it hurts… it really hurts…”

Cassio didn’t wait for my answer.

He started shoving the woman—Marta, I’d learned her name was—who was sitting where I’d put her.

“Get up! Are you deaf? She’s in pain! She needs to lie down! Get out!”

Marta winced, rubbing her knee. Her eyes sought mine, questioning.

Cassio saw the look and shoved her harder.

“What are you looking at her for? I’m her boyfriend! What I say goes! Now move, before I make you move!”

In eight years with Cassio, he had never been this aggressively “protective” of me.

Only of Ella.

The memory of his heel coming down on my stomach flooded back.

I stepped forward and pushed Cassio away from Marta with all my strength.

“Who said you speak for me? It’s my seat. She stays. No one is taking it from her.”

Cassio stared at me, stunned.

“Are you insane? She’s a stranger! You’re choosing some random woman over me? Over Ella’s health?”

“Let’s be clear, Cassio. I’m not ‘choosing’ anyone over you. I’m maintaining control of my own property. This seat is mine.”

A nasty, mocking smile twisted his lips.

“Playing word games, Serena? Look at her! She needs to lie down!”

“If she needs to lie down, buy a ticket in a sleeper pod. This is economy. It doesn’t recline that far.”

“Not this again! God, can you stop with the jealous act every time Ella is involved? We’re just friends! Why are you so petty?”

The absurdity was so profound it made me laugh.

“Petty? You are trying to steal a seat I paid for, for your ‘just a friend,’ and I’m the petty one?”

“Cass! The pain… I can’t…”

Ella’s tearful whimper sent Cassio over the edge.

He stopped talking.

With a snarl, he shoved me aside so hard I lost my balance.

My lower back slammed into the armrest of a seat across the aisle. White-hot pain lanced through me.

Cassio didn’t notice. He grabbed Marta by the collar of her dress and literally threw her out of the seat.

She crumpled to the floor with a cry.

Her loose, modest dress rode up.

A brutal, freshly healed surgical scar ran from her knee all the way down to her ankle, stark and angry against her skin.