Somehow, I drifted to sleep and when the vehicle finally pulled to a stop, I opened drowsy eyes to Remo staring out the windshield at my villa.
“Ishika.” My name left him with a heaviness I found strange for a man who knew every second before it happened.
“Yes.”
And for the first time since he’d come into my life, Remo didn’t look at me. “I’m not staying,” he said.
I frowned, not sure what to make of his statement. “Okay,” I replied, reaching for the lock.
“I’m not coming back either.”
The words punched the air out of me, freezing my fingers on the door handle. I turned my head to look at him. “What do you mean?”
He still didn’t look at me, but I noticed the way his knuckles whitened on the steering wheel, how his jaw clenched as if he were grinding his teeth, how his shoulders shook with restraint or anger, I didn’t know.
“Remo–”
“Don’t,” he cut me off, his voice ragged, strangled. “Don’t speak. If you do, I won’t be able to say what I need to.”
A painful ache began in the pit of my stomach, gradually making its way up my chest. Still, I waited.
“You don’t belong in my world,” he said, slowly. “Tonight proved it. If you’re near me, they’ll come repeatedly until they take you.”
My hands fisted in my lap. “And you think walking away fixes that?” I snapped. For so long I’d wanted him out of my life and now that my wish was being granted, I felt a deep dark hole pulling me into a nightmare I didn’t want, not without him by my side.
“It’s the only way you live long enough to hate me properly.”
I let out a bitter laugh. “You’re such an arrogant ass.”
“Maybe. But this, whatever this is between us, it’s poison in my world, little fox. You don’t survive it. You can’t.”
For a second, I almost told him. That my heart raced for him now, not from fear. That I’d tried to hate him and failed. That when he’d pulled me out of the way, I realized how much I needed him to live.
His chest lifted with a harsh breath, mine constricting as he spoke. “Each time I felt your pulse jump when a bullet flew over us, I thought I was going to lose my mind.” He dragged a hand down his face.” I can take a thousand bullets meant for me, but Iwon’t survive watching one touch you–” his voice broke, and he let out a low, vicious growl.
My heart lurched, threatening to tear out of my chest on my next exhale.
“I will fucking die the second you’re gone.” His confession wasn’t love, it was pain, carved raw and bleeding out of every pore.
It cracked through me and I inhaled sharply. My gaze shifted, watching his Adam’s apple bob a few times as though he were swallowing hard, perhaps afraid to touch me, perhaps fighting the space between us. Maybe that’s what I wanted to believe.
“I’m leaving,” he said, softer this time yet all I heard was the sound of glass shattering. “Because it’s the only way to keep you alive, safe.”
“Remo–”
“Don’t,” his voice was barely a breath now. “If you ask me to stay, I will. And I’ll burn this entire fucking world down to keep you safe. And that.” He turned to face me and God, his eyes. I’d seen him kill, seen him cold, vicious, untouchable. Now though, he looked like a man torn apart. “Will destroy you long before it destroys me.”
He touched a finger to my cheek, a gentle brush across a tear I didn’t even feel leave my eye. I reached up to touch his hand, but he pulled it back before our fingers could connect.
“Go.” I felt the reluctance in that single word, not in the air, rather the break in his voice, in the tremor of his breath, in the way he looked at me as if memorizing my expression.
I straightened, forcing my voice to stay steady. “Then I won’t stop you.”
Something flickered across his face, and I could’ve sworn it was pain. “Don’t look for me,” he murmured. “Don’t even think about me.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I lied, opening the door. How I stepped down from the vehicle and made it to my front door without succumbing to the need to crumble, amazed me. There, I stopped and turned to look at the now darkened vehicle. Another second and it peeled out of my driveway with an angry crunch of gravel.
Still, I stood there until the taillights were distance red dots, my chest falling apart, hands shaking violently. My throat burned, my vision blurred and I let the tears fall, promising myself it would be the last time I cried for a monster I hated and loved in the same breath.
