I stood there, watching Julian lead Harper away, watching her silhouette disappear around the corner.
She never looked back.
Not once.
I don't know how long I stood there. Could've been minutes. Could've been hours. Time lost all meaning in that moment, leaving only the massive void in my chest, like a black hole devouring every sense I had.
San Francisco's wind was cold, carrying the briny tang of seawater, whipping across my face in waves. But I didn't feel cold. I didn't feel anything.
Except pain.
The kind that didn't come from the body, but from somewhere deeper. Like someone had reached into my chest, gripped my heart, and was slowly, slowly tightening their fist.
So this was how she felt?
When I pushed her away. When I held Genevie in front of her. When I pretended not to see her feelings, again and again—did she feel like this too?
Fuck.
I finally got it.
Took me this long to understand what I'd done to Harper Evans.
I'd pushed her into the abyss with my own hands. Hurt her again and again. Let her down again and again.
I'd pushed her straight into someone else's arms.
I deserved this.
I fucking deserved this.
I don't know how I made it back to the car.
When I slid into the driver's seat, my hands were shaking. The tremor spread from my fingertips to my arms, then through my entire body, like something was dismantling me from the inside. I gripped the steering wheel, knuckles white from pressure, but the shaking wouldn't stop.
I'd never been this wrecked. Not at ten when I watched my parents tortured to death by our enemies. Not when I killed for the first time after taking over the family business. Not during all those years crawling through the underworld, surviving by the skin of my teeth.
I closed my eyes, trying to calm down. But all I could see was Julian leaning down to kiss Harper. His lips pressing against hers. She didn't push him away. She let him kiss her, right in front of me—
No.
My eyes snapped open. My nails nearly tore into the leather.
I couldn't give up like this.
That male nurse—I didn't do it. I fucking swear I didn't do it. I was a bastard, a cold-blooded mob boss, a man who'd broken Harper's heart. But I wouldn't use such a dirty trick to hurt an innocent person.
If it wasn't me, someone framed me.
And someone who could mimic my traits so precisely, who had a motive to make Harper hate me completely—
Not hard to guess.
Julian Dante.
I'd known the man wasn't simple. Descendant of San Francisco's fallen aristocracy. Famous psycho. Outwardly elegant likea prince from an oil painting, but underneath? Ruthless. Unscrupulous. Twisted.
His approach to Harper was no coincidence.
