Like the man in front of her isn’t the one who locked her in this cage but the one who’s bleeding from it too.
“Drop. It.”
Her eyes—red-rimmed, wide, wet—lock onto mine, and for a second, neither of us moves.
Then she lifts the glass.
Just a little.
Just enough.
I’m on her in an instant, knocking it from her grip with a force that’s more panic than precision. The shard clatters across the floor and skids under the bed. Her gasp is sharp, furious, but I don’t back off.
My hands are on her wrists, pinning them to the mattress as I crowd her space, shaking with something I don’t even have a name for.
“You don’t get to fucking leave me,” I grit out. “Not like that. Not ever.”
Her chest heaves beneath mine. Her eyes search my face like she’s trying to find the crack in the armour—and I think she sees it.
Because it’s there.
Right now.
Raw and splintering.
I meant it. Every word.
She can scream. She can spit. She can hate me with every breath she’s got left in her body—but she doesn’t get to fucking disappear. Not when I’ve carved this much space inside myself for her.
Not when her blood would stain a part of me that might still be capable of feeling.
And maybe that’s what scares me most.
She’s beneath me, barely breathing, her wrists pinned to the mattress, her chest rising like her ribs are trying to tear their way out from under her skin.
And still?—
She glares at me.
Like I’m the monster.
Like I’m the one who’s broken her.
She’s right, of course. I am. I did.
But that doesn’t mean I’ll let her end it.
“You think I’d just let you go?” I ask, voice lower now, dangerous in its softness. “That I’d stand there and watch whilst you bled out all over my fucking floor?”
Her lips part. No sound comes out.
Good.
She should be speechless.
Because I’m not finished.
I lean closer, so close her scent is the only thing I can fucking smell—salt, and fear, and the sharp, sickening tang of something too close to grief.
