Page 30 of Crystal Veil

“I can't.”

“What do you mean you can't?”

The question comes out harsh and demanding. His fingers tighten around the ring box.

“I mean I don't trust forever.”

The words emerge flat and hollowed out, like something I've carried for too long and finally dared to voice. They taste like truth and betrayal all at once.

He stares at me as if I've physically struck him. The color drains from his face, leaving him pale and suddenly fragile looking despite his imposing size.

“It's not about you,” I rush to explain, desperate to soften the blow. “It's about me. About the way I grew up watching men hurt the people they claimed to love. About how even love turns intochains if you let it. I need to know who I am outside of you before I can promise forever.”

He closes the box as if sealing something inside himself. The soft click of the velvet lid might as well be a gunshot for the way it reverberates through the room.

“So that's it,” he murmurs, his voice like a shadow slipping through the dark.

“No. It's not it. But it has to be a pause. I need space. I need to be somewhere that doesn't smell like gunpowder and grief.”

His jaw clenches, the muscle ticking beneath his skin. His eyes burn with an intensity that makes my knees weak. “You think I'll let you walk out of here unguarded? You think Bennato won't try again?”

“I'll take precautions. I'll lay low. I'll tell no one. Not even Amelia. But I can't stay here. Not while you plan another kill. Not while I watch you disappear piece by piece into that darkness.”

He turns away from me, his shoulders curling inward as if he's fighting to hold himself together. The strong line of his back, usually so confident and commanding, now looks burdened beyond bearing.

“You're leaving me,” he states quietly.

“No,” I reply, stepping closer but not daring to touch him. “I'm saving myself. And I'm hoping you'll do the same.”

The silence that follows feels infinite. I wait for him to turn around, to fight for us, to promise to change. Instead, he remains frozen, staring out at the ocean as if it holds answers I cannot provide.

I pack that night while he prowls the estate like a beast pacing the edges of its leash. It doesn't take long. I never truly unpacked after moving in. The estate was never home. It was a beautiful holding place, a gilded prison where I tried to love a man who doesn't know how to stop bleeding.

My belongings fit into two suitcases and a carry-on bag. A journalist's life portable and temporary. As I fold my clothes, I catch the scent of Renat's cologne clinging to the fabric. It makes my heart ache.

I pause at the dresser, looking at the few photographs I'd placed there. One of my mother, young and smiling in Havana before the world broke her heart. One of Amelia and me at graduation, arms around each other, believing we could conquer the world. And one of Renat and me from the first night I met him at the Marcelli estate, before the violence escalated and fear became our constant companion.

In the photo, his eyes still hold their golden warmth. I trace his face with one finger before slipping the picture into my purse. Whatever happens, I want to remember him like this.

He doesn't come to say goodbye. I wait, hoping to see him one last time. Hoping for words that might change everything or nothing. But as Artur appears in the doorway to collect my bags, I realize Renat won't risk it. He won't risk having his resolve crumble. He won't risk begging me to stay.

Artur carries my luggage without comment, his face carefully neutral. He's been with the Rostov family for years, has seen everything, and survived everything. If anyone understands the cost of love in this world, it's him.

The drive to my apartment passes in silence. Artur watches me through the rearview mirror, his dark eyes memorizing my face as if he's already planning to find me again when Renat inevitably demands it. The city lights rush past the windows. Miami at night is beautiful and dangerous, just like the man I'm leaving behind.

My apartment building looks smaller than I remembered, shabbier after months in Renat's marble palace. But as the elevator carries me to the third floor, and I slide my key into the familiar lock, something loosens in my chest.

The apartment smells like dust and stale air. The plants Amelia watered for me have grown wild in my absence, reaching toward windows that need cleaning. Everything is exactly as I left it. My desk is covered with research notes, coffee-stained and marked with urgent scribbles. My books are stacked in precarious towers. My life, interrupted but not erased.

I drop my bags by the door and walk to the couch, the secondhand one with the coffee stain and the frayed armrest that Renat wrinkled his nose at. Now it feels like the most comfortable place in the world.

I curl up in the corner where I used to write articles and dream of uncovering the truth about powerful men and their secrets. Before I became the secret in the story I couldn’t tell.

The tears come then, hot and fast and unstoppable. I cry for the man I love who's lost himself to vengeance. I cry for the future we might have had if the world were different, if love were simpler, if happily ever after didn't require so much blood.

But mostly, I cry because I turned down his proposal. Because I looked at the ring that represented everything he could give meand chose myself instead. Because for the first time in my life, I loved myself more than I loved someone else. And it was the hardest thing I've ever done.

The baby flutters again, or maybe that's just my imagination. Either way, I place my hand over my belly and whisper promises into the darkness. Promises about strength and choices and never settling for less than I deserve.