Their Four-Person Test, My Unopened Parachute Chapter 09

In the video, I sat on the couch in the empty living room.

My face was pale, with deep dark circles under my eyes. I’d gotten so thin I was almost unrecognizable.

But my eyes were eerily calm – no tears, no hatred.

I’d recorded it the night before I boarded the helicopter.

“Damian, by the time you watch this, I’ll already be completely gone from your life.”

Damian scrambled to the screen on all fours.

He reached out, trying to touch my face on the monitor.

“Avery… Avery, I’m listening! Come back, please!”

On the screen, I spoke calmly, “The doctor told me today that I’m pregnant. Almost two months.”

“Because of long-term malnutrition and severe anemia, the pregnancy is barely holding on.”

“The doctor said that if I lose this baby, I might never be able to become a mother again.””

Damian’s breath stopped.

“Tomorrow you’re taking me skydiving at two thousand meters.”

“I know Celeste has been playing cute with you again. She said I’d only deserve to be part of your inner circle

if I learned to jump too.”

“You even promised to propose to me if I jumped.”

“Damian, do you really think I care about your engagement ring?”

I lowered my head and laughed bitterly, endless desolation in my eyes:

“Five years ago, when you and Luca were cornered by the rival’s gunmen behind the old warehouse, I shielded you with my own body and took three baton strikes for you.”

“Back then you said you’d marry no one but me. You’d make me the happiest woman in the world.”

“Later, you really did become Don Moretti. Luca and Nico became your right-hand men, and Celeste became the little princess you all doted on.”

“You started to say I wasn’t fashionable enough. That I was timid and weak. That I was a burden.”

“You’d slip snakes into my bag and laugh your heads off while I shook in terror.”

“You’d dump me in an abandoned warehouse and make me feel my way through the dark, saying it was to

train my mind.”

“I understood a long time ago. You weren’t trying to make me strong.”

“You were just enjoying trampling the dignity of a girl who loved you to feed Celeste’s pathetic vanity.”

On the screen, I raised my hand and gently touched my flat stomach.

“Tomorrow, I’m still going.”

“It’s my last gift to this five-year relationship. And a choice I’m giving our baby.”

“If you so much as once looked back at my pale face, and asked me, ‘Avery, are you feeling okay?’ – I would have told you about the pregnancy and gone home with you.”

“But if you still…”

“Damian, then we’re even.”

“Neither I nor our child will ever forgive you.”

The video cut off abruptly, and the screen went black again.

Damian stood frozen in front of the computer.

He remembered that moment at the helicopter’s cabin door.

Avery’s face was deathly pale, her hands clenched on the door frame:

“Damian, I really can’t. Let me go back… I – I’m…”

“Ah!!”

Damian let out a scream of pure agony.

He raised his palm and began slapping himself across the face like a man possessed.

Blood trickled down his chin, but he didn’t seem to feel the pain. He just kept hitting himself, over and over.

“I killed her… I killed her and our baby with my own hands!”

Guilt swallowed him whole.

A few minutes later, he staggered to his feet, grabbed his keys, and tore out of the apartment.

He had to see Avery.

Even if it was just one more look.