“A part of me feels like I need to let her be, to leave her in peace,” I admit, my voice tight, my jaw clenching as I bite down on my bottom lip. “But the other part of me—” I trail off, frustration curling through my chest. “I want to chase her. To annoy her until she finally forgives me for what I’ve done.”
He shifts, taking a deliberate step closer. “The best thing you can do is leave her alone… for now,” he says, leaning in just slightly, tone low and measured. “She’s in pain, and every timeyou’re there, you pour salt into her wounds. She needs time and space to think, to understand how she feels without you hovering over her. And when she feels like shit—which she will—then she’ll come around. She’ll accept you.”
The words sink into me like ice and fire, cutting through my chest with a bitter edge. Easier said than fucking done.
Let her go? Give her space? The logic of it makes sense, but logic has never guided me with Estella. We’ve never bowed to the world’s rules.
“You’ll have something to occupy yourself,” Cane adds, pulling me out of the spiral of my thoughts. A sudden weight slaps against my chest, and I glance down to find a thin folder pressing into me. My fingers close around it, reluctant yet compelled. “The man assigned to kill your parents. Everything about him is here.”
A sharp shiver races down my spine. I swallow before gingerly peeling back the folder’s cover. A photo stares up at me, small yet impossible to ignore. My hands tremble just slightly as I pry the folder open fully, letting the pages spill across my palms.
I trace the contours of his face, study the angles, the faint shadows captured in the photograph. My eyes skim his name, linger on every line of information etched onto the sheets. Somewhere deep in my gut, a spark flares—a faint, stubborn ember of fire, nearly smothered but refusing to die, flickering with a persistent, quiet insistence.
His face carries that strange familiarity, a ghost I can’t shake off. He’s in his fifties now, certainly changed, but I know that if I ever crossed paths with him in a crowd, I’d recognize him without hesitation.
“He lives on a farm,” Cane continues. “Middle of the mountains. It’s going to be a struggle to get there. You’ll be hiking for hours.”
His phone vibrates, breaking the tension. He glances at me, silently asking if I have questions. I nod curtly, and he steps away, answering the call, his voice fading beneath the hum of my thoughts.
The folder slips from my mind when a faint click echoes from the bathroom. My eyes snap toward the sound. Estella emerges, striding into the bedroom, settling on the edge of the bed with quiet determination.
Something inside me propels me forward before I can think, my muscles moving on autopilot. I know she needs space, yet my body ignores reason. Every time I’m lost in my feelings, every time I can’t untangle the storm inside me, she’s the one who has always shown me exactly what I feel.
I close the distance between us, each step measured, drawn by the gravity of her presence. Carefully, I lower myself onto the opposite edge of the bed, the mattress dipping beneath my weight and sending a faint tremor through the space between us. She releases a long, weary sigh that ripples across her chest, but her gaze never lifts from the floor. She won’t look at me.
“I found him,” I say, my voice scraping out of me. I clear my throat, forcing the rest out. “The man who killed my parents.”
Her head is turned away, but I still catch the subtle flick of her eyebrow, the faint pull at the corner of her mouth. “Okay,” she mutters, flat and stripped of warmth.
The dryness of it cuts deep, though I also know she’s giving me far more than I deserve. I swallow the sting down. “Do you think I should do it?”
She lets out a humorless chuckle, a sound with no true beginning or end. Words don’t follow. Cane’s voice murmurs somewhere in the distance, low and muffled, while the two of us stare at the floor like it might offer answers neither of us can reach.
“Do youwantto do it?” she asks at last, uncertainty threading her voice.
I lift one shoulder in a half-shrug, aware she’s still refusing to look my way. “I don’t know. I don’t know what I feel, Estella.”
“That makes two of us.”
I clamp down on the inside of my cheek until the skin splits. Blood floods my mouth with metallic heat. “Estella, I’m?—”
“Listen,” she cuts in, her tone sharpening, bitter edges slicing cleanly. “I’ll help take them down because no one’s giving me a fucking choice. But you and me?”
She turns fully toward me, a strange gleam in her eyes—one that strikes with the force of a confession I never wanted to hear. Breath leaves my lungs, while shame and guilt coil low inside me, settling deep as if they’ve always belonged there.
I did this to her. To us.
And I have no clue how to piece it back together.
“I’m done with you, Dante. After this is over, I’m leaving. Alone.”
Her lips tremble, just barely, and every instinct in me screams to close the space between us—to wrap my arms around her, to anchor her, to promise she’s not sinking alone.
But she’d aim for my heart if I tried.
“I understand,” I manage, the words ripping from my throat like splintered steel. I see it in her eyes—she doesn’t want to be alone. She’s spent her whole life pretending that solitude was a choice she could live with, when in truth, it was the last thing she ever wanted. She’s cocooning herself now, wrapping up in defenses she thinks will keep her from shattering.
I’ll give her time. I’ll give her space. I’ll be patient.
