He just watches. Calm. Still. Infuriating. My glare intensifies, turning outright vicious. He doesn’t react.At all. And that’s when something inside me snaps.
An inferno blazes in my chest, burning through every rational thought.
Before I know it, I’m screaming and throwing the small lamp from the bedside at his head. He dodges it. Easily. It only makes me angrier.
Next comes an ashtray. It shatters behind him, sending shards of glass through the room. It’s not enough. Not. Enough. Not even close.
The rage roars out of me. Unstoppable.
A plate. A speaker. A busted helmet. A book. A mug. A fucking chair. I throw them all. Every object a weapon of fury. Every movement a war cry. Through broken screams, I launch them all. Aiming for his head, his chest, his entire existence.
I don’t stop. I don’t stop until the violin hits the wall and cracks against it. Until I realize that one of the few things that ever brought light into my life is now shattered. Gone. Just like my soul. I freeze, my eyes fixated on it.
My knees wobble. My ragged breathing is the only sound in the room.
He’s still standing. When I finally look at him, I see blood trickling down his cheek. Two small cuts. Somehow, those tiny drops of his blood are like needles piercing my heart. My rage evaporates at the sight of them and leaves nothing behind.
“I don’t want to be married to you.”
The words that fall out of my mouth are a broken sound. Ugly. Laced with hurt.
“I know,” he whispers.
And it’s the way he says it — quiet, raw –that slams straight into my ribs. That look in his eyes? It’s soaked in grief. It’s the first real flicker of humanity I’ve seen in him since I woke up in this suffocating room. And I realize that, for some reason, he needs this delay. I hate it. I hate that it twists something inside my chest. That it makes me feel anything at all.
Fuck, I wish I could shut it off. Just flick a switch and turn to stone. I wish I could look at him like he’s nothing but furniture. Again. But that ship’s already sailed, hasn’t it?
I spent months trying to forget, shoving thoughts of him into boxes I never meant to open again. Because I knew. I fucking knew. He’s still buried under my skin. And now that he’s standing in front of me again, I’m cracking like cheap glass.
It’s pathetic, the way I still wonder what it could’ve been like if we’d had a normal beginning. It makes me sick that he hurt me so deeply and yet I still cling to his lies. I don’t owe him anything anymore. I paid him with my life. If anything, he’s the one who owes me now.
What the hell does he still want from me?
I watch him carefully. I know him. The more I push back, the more he’ll try to fight me on this. The thought makes me angry again. He has no right!
“Why are you doing this? Why would you want to be legally tied to awhore,” I ask, throwing the word he used back in his face. It lands like a grenade.
He flinches, but he recovers quickly.
“I’m not trying to hurt you, adorable,” he says, tone soft. Gentle. “I’ll sign the papers. I promise. Just… not today.” A pause. “And I was full of shit that day. Every word was a lie. The only whore between us was me. I was so addicted to you, you could've asked me to lick the ground for just a chance to lick thesoles of your feet, and I would've done it. I’m so fucking sorry for everything I said.”
My jaw tightens. No. No, that’s not good enough. His sorry is not good enough. And this delay doesn’t make sense. What kind of game is he playing now?
“Your sorry means nothing. Once you break a bone, you can’t unbreak it. It doesn’t matter if it heals, the scar is still there,” I whisper, voice raw.
His lips twitch like he wants to say something. In the end, he just swallows the words.
“What’s your plan here, Ghost?” I break the silence a few moments later, frustrated.
“The snake cult is the priority,” he says. “You can’t go back to Ria’s. Not until we deal with them.”
The calm in his voice, in every inch of his body, is unnerving.
I open my mouth to protest but I close it instantly. As much as I don’t like it, he’s right. Fuck, he’s right.
“What about Ria?” I snap.
“Tank’s on her. She’ll probably stay here, too.”
