The moment of hesitation, the sheer distraught disbelief on my brother’s face, and the weighted secrets that curl around us are like another gunshot. It’s quiet—restrained—but the blow is all the same. Kaden clutches his chest, falling to his knees as he tries to wrap a hand around my leg, but I don’t let him. I step back, the distance between us stretching into miles rather than feet.
“Don’t do this, Melody,” he begs, shaking his head. For the first time in my life, I see him cry. A single tear slides down from his glossy eyes, falling quickly to the gravel beneath him. “Please, don’t, Sunny.”
I’m weak.
Because it’s the first emotion I’ve ever seen him show, and it’s because of something I said. It almost makes me fall to the ground with him, but I can’t. I can’t let him have this if he’s choosing this life over me.
I’ve never been selfish, but when it comes to my own safety, I won’t risk it all so Kaden can become a cog in the underworld with my support. I’ll never condone what I saw tonight. I can’t even piece it together without sending myself into psychosis.
It hurts.
It hurts so badly that I can’t force the words out. I never wanted us to get to this point. We were meant for each other, but he chose to kill someone over me. He’s made his decision, and now, it’s time for me to make mine.
I lift my chin, steadying my features the best I can past my tear-stained cheeks. I’ve never felt so small in my whole life, but I can’t let him drag me under with him. That alone makes me bigger than both of us. “Goodbye, Kaden.”
Another tear slips, anguish displayed across every fiber of his being. He wobbles in place as if physically struck by my words, and I have to turn around. I can’t see him fall. Ican’t.
Every step further away from him is an eerie, muddled sound. It’s like the tether that’s always connected us has grown frayed, the twine ripping and tearing the further I get from him.
Behind me, he screams into the night—a raw, blood-curdling sound that claws through the dark and settles deep in my bones.
He’s shattered.
And I’m the one who broke him.
Chapter thirty-two
Kaden
Pain.
Melody.
Pain.
Melody.
It’s as if my whole world has just erupted—taking the only person I ever cared about with it. The horror on her face is something I can’t erase. No matter how long I scream or sob, it keeps replaying in my mind. It’s a horror film that won’t end, a nightmare that will follow me until I fucking die, and an emptiness that can never be filled.
She took the light with her.
I didn’t care about seeing colors before her, but now that I have, I know it’s only because of her.
She breathed life into me.
She was myeverything.
Without her, what am I? A failed experiment, the child of a billionaire who now belongs to the underworld and nothing more.
I failed her.
My Melody.
“Are you just going to stay in the dirt?” Ivan asks coolly from behind me. “She left an hour ago.”
I can’t breathe.
I can’t move.
