Her expression shifted—anger loosening just enough to reveal the wound beneath it.
And instantly, my chest cracked open.
She wasn’t angry at me.
She was hurt by me.
And for the first time, I understood something cold and terrifying. This truth wouldn’t just hurt her.
It would destroy her.
Chapter 30
***
Emma
I wondered if he might actually die.
He certainly looked like he wanted to.
The thought slid through me, dark and almost amused, as I watched the man in front of me try—and fail—to untangle his own web of lies.
Lies I couldn’t yet name, only feel in the way his throat worked, the way fear flickered behind his eyes like a candle caught in a draft.
Ava’s unease had planted the first seed of suspicion, a dagger of anxiety buried deep in my gut.
The look on his face twisted that blade.
Now it was lodged somewhere between anger and heartbreak, turning slow, excruciating circles as I waited for the truth to bleed out of him.
A dark laugh slipped free before I could stop it. “Are you going to answer?” The sound of it was brittle, cruel. “Or will you let your silence be the answer?”
I tilted my head, letting the next words drip like venom. “If it’s the latter.” I shrugged as if I didn’t care—though my heart was already splintering, shards grinding against each other—”you can leave now.”
He reached out, one step forward.
I stepped back.
I wasn’t ready to share air with him. Not until I had answers.
His hands fell to his sides, helpless.
“I don’t…” he rasped, words cracking. “I don’t know what to say.”
Anger flared, hot and sharp and alive—relief and rage tangled so tightly I couldn’t tell them apart.
“Then leave!” I shouted, the sound tearing from somewhere deep, somewhere raw. I turned away, retreating toward the living room, needing space—needing air that wasn’t thick with him and everything I didn’t know.
His footsteps followed, heavy and unrelenting, echoing the pounding of my own heart. Every ounce of betrayal I’d tried to forgive—his kisses, his promises, his gentle care—now coagulated in my throat like old blood. The pressure built behind my eyes until tears threatened, traitorous and humiliating.
A single tear slipped free before I could stop it, hot against my skin. It traced a slow, betraying path down my cheek—evidence of the weakness I tried to hold inside.
Damien stilled, expression shifting from fear to guilt.
The same look he’d worn that first night we’d met.
The same haunted remorse.
