He's hurt.
He's dead.
He's with someone else.
He woke up and realized you were a mistake.
He left because loving you costs too much—costs blood and scars and nights spent holding you through nightmares that aren't your fault but aren't his responsibility either.
Maybe he just wanted out.
Maybe silence was the easiest way to tell me.
The thought split me open, cracked me down the middle like the wine bottle against the wall.
I curled in on myself on the kitchen floor, back pressed against the cabinets, surrounded by broken glass and spilled wine, the sandwich still untouched on the counter above me, whispers pressing in from every corner like spectators at an execution.
"I don't want them," I whispered to whatever listened in the shadows. "I don't want the stories. I don't want the scratches or the whispers or any of it. I just want him."
My voice cracked on the last word.
"Please," I added, quieter, to no one and everyone. "Please just let him be okay."
The apartment didn't answer.
Neither did he.
I pulled my hoodie tighter around myself—his hoodie, the one I'd stolen months ago that still smelled faintly of him. Of cologne and smoke and us. The scent hit me like a fist to the sternum. I buried my face in the fabric and sobbed harder, breathing him in like I could summon him back through sheer desperation.
The tears kept coming.
The scratches kept burning.
And Drogo stayed silent.
17
DROGO
The guards dragged me back before I could get another punch in.
Four of them. Professional. No wasted movement, no anger—just efficient violence applied with the precision of men who'd done this a thousand times before.
Fists to the ribs—sharp, controlled strikes that stole my breath. Boots to the thighs that buckled my legs. Elbows to the kidneys that sent lightning bolts of pain up my spine. A knee to the gut that folded me in half, bile rising in my throat.
I fought back. Always fought. It was instinct, survival coded into muscle memory from years in the pit. But these men knew how to end fights quickly. One caught my jaw with a precise hook that cracked my cheekbone and made stars explode behind my eyes. Another split my lip with a backhand that sent blood spraying across the polished wood floor.
My mouth filled with copper—warm, thick, familiar.
The guards dragged away from Klaus—two on each arm, hauling me like dead weight toward the elevator. I didn't fight. Not yet. Saving my strength, waiting for an opening that might never come.
Down. Not up.
The elevator descended into the building's guts—basement level, far below the gleaming penthouse, where things happened that couldn't be seen from the street.
Cold concrete corridors stretched ahead, fluorescent lights buzzing like angry wasps overhead. The sound drilled into my skull, high-pitched and relentless. The air smelled wrong—stale, chemical, like bleach trying to cover something older and worse underneath.
A door at the end. Steel. Reinforced. No window.
