Still, every night, when the day wound down and the quiet crept in, her thoughts returned to Nitro. She missed the way he watched her—not like she was something fragile, but like she was something worth protecting. She missed the silence they shared, the way he never filled it just to ease his own discomfort. She missed the steady weight of him beside her, the certainty of knowing she wasn’t alone even when she felt broken.
Leaving him had been the hardest thing she’d ever done. It was harder than running, and harder than surviving. Because this time, she hadn’t been escaping danger when she left. She’d been running away from love. Aurora told herself it was temporary and that she just needed time and space. Distance enough to figure out who she was without leaning on someone else’s strength.
But late at night, when the world was quiet, and her phone sat dark on the nightstand, she wondered if she’d made the biggest mistake of her life, leaving Nitro. And whether loving someone meant knowing when to let them go—even when every part of you wanted to stay.
NITRO
Nitro knewthe difference between silence and absence. Silence was something you could sit with. Absence was something that hollowed you out. He’d learnt that the hard way over the past few months that Aurora was gone. The passing months without a word from her were driving him insane. He tried everything to find her. He’d called her every day, and even texted her, begging her to at least let him know that she was all right.
He moved back to the safehouse, knowing that if she came back to him, she’d be able to find him there. Nitro even took a leave of absence from work during the first month that she was gone, not wanting to leave the house, just in case. He’d basically given up his entire life to wait for her to come back to him—if she ever did.
He had constant reminders that she was gone. Aurora’s things were gone. Not everything was missing. She hadn’t wiped herself clean from his life, but she had erased enough of herself to make his entire life feel empty. The spare toothbrush missing next to his was the biggest reminder that she was gone. The jacket she wore when nights turned cold was missing from thehook near the front door, and the duffel bag she’d sworn she kept packed just in case was gone.
Nitro stood in the doorway longer than he needed to, looking out into the darkness, as he did every night since she left. He didn’t swear or punch a wall, like he did when she first left him. He stopped tearing the place apart, looking for clues she hadn’t left behind. That wasn’t who he was anymore—and it wasn’t what she needed from him.
Still, his chest ached like something vital had been cut loose, so he searched anyway. Not like a man hunting prey—but like someone checking every place he knew she visited, hoping he might find some trace of her. He rode the back roads she liked. Checked the quiet diner outside town where she sometimes sat alone with coffee she never finished. He asked questions carefully, never pushing, never demanding, and always got the same answer. No one had seen her.
He was about ready to turn in for the night when someone knocked at the front door. He tried to stop his heart from racing as he made his way to the door, hoping that it was her. Instead, Nitro opened the door to find Ghost standing on the front porch.
“Am I interrupting?” he asked.
Nitro barked out his laugh. “Um, no,” he grumbled. “I was just heading to bed.”
Ghost looked him over as though he had lost his mind. “You do know that it’s only eight, right?” he asked. He was well aware of how early it was, but he had a long day trying to track down Aurora, and honestly, he was exhausted.
“I’m aware,” he said. “It’s been a long fucking day,” he grumbled.
“Still no sign of her?” Ghost asked. His friend had been searching for her, too, in his spare time. Most of the guys down at the Iron Vipers were looking for her, but she was good atdisappearing. He had a feeling that if Aurora didn’t want to be found, she wouldn’t be.
“No, and I feel like I’m losing my fucking mind,” Nitro admitted.
Ghost crossed his arms over his chest. “You want me to dig deeper?”
Nitro shook his head. “No, it would just be a waste of time. If she doesn’t want to be found, she won’t be.”
Ghost studied him. “You’re letting her disappear, aren’t you?”
“No,” Nitro replied quietly. “I’m letting her choose.” That didn’t make any of this easier. “She’s been told what to do her entire life. She was a prisoner, and I don’t ever want her to feel that way with me.
Sure, he sounded confident with his decision, but it was killing him. Nights were the worst. He lay awake in the bed they used to share, staring at the ceiling, replaying every conversation, every look, every moment he might’ve mistaken her calm for silent closure. He wondered if loving her meant knowing when not to reach out.
And God help him—he did love her. Not the way men loved possessions. He loved her the way you loved something wild and wounded and strong enough to walk away. Still, he kept her number unsaved but memorized and even stopped reaching out to her. He left the porch light on and stayed where he knew she could find him, if she decided she wanted to.
Some days, that felt like strength. Other days, it felt like torture. He caught himself touching the empty space beside him at night. Pausing mid-sentence when he remembered she wasn’t there to hear what he was saying. He spent his nights listening for footsteps that never came until he finally fell asleep.
“She might never come back,” Ghost said gently.
“I know,” Nitro replied. “But I refuse to give up on her.”
Ghost hesitated. “You want her back anyway.”
Nitro didn’t answer right away. “Yeah,” he finally breathed.
After the first month of Aurora disappearing, he decided that the only thing he could do as more weeks passed was to go on with his life. The world moved on around him, and he wasn’t going to sit on the sidelines waiting for her. Missions came and went. He had even signed up for extra missions, hoping that work would take his mind off Aurora, but it didn’t. Nitro functioned the way he always had—efficient, lethal when necessary, and calm under pressure. But something in him waited for her. Not obsessively and not desperately. Just faithfully.
He stood on the porch each evening as dusk settled in, watching the road stretch out in front of the house like a question that hadn’t decided how to answer yet. If she came back, he wouldn’t cage her. She had already lived that way, and he wouldn’t do that to her again. But if she didn’t come back to him, he’d find a way to survive the pain that she had left behind.
But God—if she chose him again? Nitro exhaled slowly and let the hope stay. Because loving Aurora had taught him something he’d never learned in war, blood, or brotherhood. Sometimes, the bravest thing a man could do was leave the door open and trust that the woman he loved knew where home was.
