He doesn’t answer. His arms tighten in response, his lips brushing my neck.
“Just let me love you,” he whispers into my skin. “Just let me love you.”
Chapter 52: BROKEN CLOCK
The wind and sleetknock against the windows—steady and rhythmic, a metronome counting down my last moments with her.
It’s fitting. Our love story began in the rain twenty years ago, and now it ends beneath another storm.
My phone buzzes with an incoming call.
Edon Berisha. He’s pissed I didn’t tell him about the stolen package.
I let it ring. Anger threatens to spark, but I shove it into a box.
This isn’t the time for it.
Because these are my last moments with her.
Moisture clings in the air, the early dawn light illuminating the soft rise and fall of her chest as she sleeps.
When she wakes up, I’ll be gone.
I ignore the clench under my ribs and brush the silky strands off her face.
On the nightstand, the blood-red gems of the rose in the music box glint, still as beautiful as the day we found it in the antique shop as Kian and Elise. The timer on my phone ticks uselessly beside it, a habit formed from years of pain, one I’ll carry as a reminder of her.
Twenty-eight minutes. February twenty-eighth—the most pivotal date of my life.
It’s a blessing and a curse to know that on this date, the love of my life was born, but the very people who gave me life were cruelly stolen from me.
Months ago, the thought would’ve sent rage crashing through my veins until I couldn’t breathe.
Tonight, something else fills the hollow.
Acceptance.
Andgratitude.
I lace my fingers with hers, my nose dipping down and inhaling her sweet scent of roses.
“Don’t hate me,” I whisper in her ear before pressing a kiss there. “Everything I do is for you.”
For years, hatred and destruction blackened my soul and obliterated my heart.
But she resurrected me.
She gave me a second chance at life.
And that’s exactly why I have to let her go.
She deserves love, sunshine, and roses—a life safe and warm above the ground.
Not buried underground with me in the dark.
It isn’t just revenge anymore. Not just about settling a score with Edon Berisha and The Six. It’s about making the world a safer place for her, for other Kians and Elises out there, so they can have their happy endings.
Moisture blurs my vision as I reach into my pocket, pull out my last gift for her, and set it beside the music box.
