This is my silence, my silent scream.
Let him feel what it means to be forgotten. Replaced. Abandoned.
But he doesn’t look angry. He looks lethal. Like he could kill the man possessing my body without blinking. And maybe, in another life, he would have.
But something stops him. His fists stay clenched and his jaw locked. Fury simmers just beneath the surface—barely restrained. Yet beneath the rage, there's hollow, raw devastation. Like he's watching a nightmare unfold and still doesn’t believe it’s real.
His eyes search mine—not for answers, but for a sign that I’m still in there.
“Della.” His voice is low. Shattered. A whisper that’s not even audible through the pounding bass, but I hear it in my bones.
“Dorian,” screams every broken part of me. Mind. Flesh. Heart.
But I don’t say his name. If I do, I’ll fall. And I’ve spent years learning how to stand.
The stranger lets out a guttural moan as he finishes, collapsing against me. I stand still. Hollow.
“Get off her!” Dorian growls.
The man jerks back, still panting. “Que carajo!? What the hell, man?”
But Dorian doesn’t flinch. His voice drops, low and dangerous.
“Leave. Now.”
A beat later, two bodyguards appear behind him, silent as ghosts. That’s all it takes.
The stranger mutters under his breath, yanks his pants up, tugs off the condom and vanishes into the crowd like smoke.
In the silence that follows, I fix my dress with slow, deliberate moves. The sequins shimmer under the shifting lights, like tiny flames crawling over my skin. I smooth it down my thighs, adjust the neckline, lift my chin. And, only then, do I meet his eyes again.
Then Dorian steps forward. He doesn’t touch me—his body is still, but his stare devouring. His eyes crawl over my skin, drinking in every detail: the mess, the truth, the red dress.
“I didn’t think I’d ever see you again,” he says finally. His voice is low, strained, wrecked by time and distance, and all the things we never said.
I don’t answer. I can’t. My heart is still racing.
I take this second to look at him.
He seems different, taller than I remember. Or maybe I just forgot how the world disappears when he’s near me. Six foot three of presence, power, and control barely leashed. A man carved from regret and rage.
Broad shoulders in a black tailored suit. A black shirt opened just enough to show the bronze line of his collarbone — and just beneath it, the quiet strength of defined muscle, the kind shaped not in gyms, but through years of work and grit, poured into concrete and steel.
His long, black hair now brushes just above his shoulders, the waves falling naturally.
He doesn’t wear the earrings anymore. He used to wear one in each ear — small stones that caught just enough light to suggest rebellion, not wealth. Back then, it was never about status. It was defiance. A challenge.
But it’s his eyes that hit me hardest.
Still black as coal, but now... cold. Quiet. Once, they burned when you got too close. Now they hold shadows I don’t recognize.
“Five years and this is how you come back, Della?”
He says my name like it still belongs to him. And it lands somewhere deep, where I’ve kept it buried.
“I didn’t know I owed you an explanation.” I say, voice sharp like glass fracturing.
His jaw tightens. “You owed me more than silence.”
