“I wanted to give it to you the right way,” he continues. “Planned it a hundred times in my head. Dinner at that Italian place you love. Or back at our spot by the creek. Somewhere beautiful and meaningful where I could tell you everything I feel and ask you properly to be mine forever.”
He looks up at me, and the pain in his eyes is unbearable.
“But there’s no time left for perfect moments. No guarantee past tomorrow. So, I’m giving it to you now, here, like this. Because if something happens to me, I need you to have it. I need you to know that for ten years, through absolute hell, you were the reason I kept breathing.”
I’m sobbing now, clutching the ring so tightly, the bent edges bite into my palm.
Kain leans forward and presses his lips to my hand—the one holding the ring—in a kiss so gentle, it shatters me.
“I’m not asking you to forgive me,” he says against my skin. “I’m not asking you to wear it or accept it or do anything with it. I just need you to have it. To know that what I felt for you—what I still feel—was never a lie. Never part of the mission. Never anything but real.”
I can’t hold back anymore. A sound tears from my throat—half sob, half keen—and I reach up with my free hand to caress his cheek.
“You absolute idiot,” I choke out. “You frustrating, beautiful idiot.”
He closes his eyes, leaning into my touch like a man starved for it.
“I don’t know how to forgive you yet,” I whisper to Kain. “I don’t know if I’ll ever figure out how to reconcile loving you with what you did. But this—” I open my palm and stare at the ring through my tears. “This breaks my heart in a way nothing else has.”
“I’m sorry,” he breathes.
“Don’t.” I shake my head. “Don’t apologize for surviving. Don’t apologize for holding on to hope. Don’t apologize for being the boy who loved me enough to keep this ring through ten years of torture.”
Our foreheads touch. We’re both crying now, silent tears that speak louder than words.
“I didn’t mention it to pressure you,” he finally says. “But as we face the uncertainty of tomorrow, I wanted you to have it. Whatever happens, whatever you decide about us, it’s yours. It has always been yours.”
He pulls back and stands, and I watch through blurred vision as he reaches for his clothes.
“I received instructions from Rick while you slept,” he says, turning businesslike even as he wipes his eyes. “I need to fall into position to deceive them. Make it look like I’m still loyal, still following orders.”
He pulls on his clothes, and I see the change in his posture. My stomach tightens at the sight. When he moves to the door, he pauses with his back still turned to me, like he doesn’t want to leave.
“Kain—”
“I’ll see you after,” he says, and it sounds like a promise he’s not sure he can keep. “Stay safe. Listen to Darius. Don’t do anything stupid.”
The next thing I know, he’s gone. I hear the apartment door click shut behind him with a finality that leaves me stunned.
I sit there in the rumpled sheets, still clutching the ring, tears streaming down my face. The bent gold catches the morning light, throwing fractured reflections across my palm.
Ten years. He held onto this for ten years. Held onto it through torture and conditioning and everything they did to break him.
I bring it to my lips and kiss it, tasting salt and metal and the ghost of every time he must have touched it while thinking of me.
“Moon Goddess,” I whisper to the empty room. “Please, please keep him safe. Keep all of us safe. And if we survive this, if we make it through tomorrow, I swear I’ll find a way to forgive him. I’ll try. Just…please don’t take him from me again.”
The ring is warm in my hand as I close my fingers around it.
For now, this is all I have. Hope. Fear. Love. And this promise from a boy who became a man in hell but never forgot me.
I sit here in my bed for a long time after he leaves, still clutching the ring. The apartment feels too quiet without him. Too empty.
Beyond these walls, I can hear my neighbors—someone’s TV playing too loud, a couple laughing as they pass by in the hallway, the distant sound of traffic. The world is still turning. Still moving forward as if nothing has changed.
But everything has changed.
Work feels surreal.
