“I know,” I whisper, my lips brushing the side of her temple. “I don’t want to pretend the last year hasn’t happened. I want you to let me stay because you know I’ll burn the world down and build it again just to keep you in it.” My palm presses to the small of her back, heavy enough to anchor her, to claim her, to promise her she’s mine. “I’ll swallow whatever it takes. I’ll pull every string, break every rule, destroy every hand that reaches for you.”
Her fingers clutch the pink strand of hair tighter, the tremor in her hands betraying her control. “You almost make it sound like a war,” she whispers.
“Because in this life it is,” I growl, pressing my forehead tighter to hers. “Anything worth keeping is worth fighting for. And I’m done standing on the sidelines.”
“Then don’t let me go,” she breathes, her eyes flickering between mine as if she’s weighing me up.
“I won’t,” I promise, lips grazing her temple. “I’ll never let you go again, I swear.”
“I still don’t know if I can trust you,” she whispers finally. Her voice is still thick with emotion, but it’s softer now. “And yet… I find myself wanting to.”
I’ll take that as a victory, small as it is.“Then let me prove it, Lily. Let me start fixing everything. No more secrets. No more lies. Just us, and the truth, and whatever it takes to bring you home.”
She swallows hard, staring at me, and for the first time since the exile, I feel a flicker of hope—small, fragile, but alive.
Chapter 32
His forehead is warm against mine. The rhythm of his breath feels like a prayer, and for one blissful second, the world narrows to the space between us, the mattress beneath me, the hum of the city outside, the cedarwood ghost of him that lingers under my skin like a bruise.
His confessions hang between us, heavy and still, nowhere near enough. Because while his words sound pretty, they’re a double-edged sword. One that tears open old wounds and, in the same breath, tries to patch them over with promises laced in thorns that slice my palms every time I reach for them.
My first,stupidimpulse is to believe him when he says he’ll bulldoze everyone and everything in our path. My second is to spit in his face, to make him feel a fraction of what I’ve beenliving with. Because promises are cheap in our world. I learned that the hard way, and I refuse to ever be made a fool of again.
These men think their names, their connections, their so-called power mean that a few pretty speeches or extravagant gifts are enough to fix everything. Few of them actually know the agony of bleeding for what they claim means the world to them. And they sure as hell don’t know what it feels like to be exiled without so much as a second thought.
Ihavebled. I’ve lived through the toxic mix of embarrassment and pain of being cut off in the blink of an eye. I learned that pity is poisonous, and apologies are like paper; they catch flame the moment the wind hits them. I learned the weight of silence. I learned how lonely, how quiet, the after is.
And if Matt wants to evenattemptto make things right, then he needs to understand the hell his actions put me through.
He says he was afraid of what would happen if he spoke. That he didn’t know what to believe, so he hesitated. The reasoning settles in my bones like cold iron—too solid, too easy to believe. Maybe it’s true. Maybe it’s a lie polished to sound like truth, meant to dull the shame of his silence. Either way, it hurts that part of me still wants to believe him.
I stare at him—this boy who once wrecked me with a kiss and then destroyed me with his silence. This man who stood by while I bled behind closed doors, wrapped in lace and lies, watching every moment of it, and still did nothing.
Andnowhe wants redemption? Now he wantsme?
It’s not that easy. I need proof—real, tangible proof that I can hold between my hands. Not words. Not gifts. I want to see him crawl through the wreckage he helped build. I want bloody knees, scraped palms, and worship. I need him to understand that forgiveness isn’t something he can buy; it’s something he’llhave to bleed for and be willing to pay the price, no matter how high the cost.
I want to watch him dismantle himself, then, piece by trembling piece, rebuild around me, like gravity itself bends for us. I’ve worshiped him long enough. Now it’s his turn to kneel, to raise me higher, and maybe—if he begs right—I’ll let him climb up beside me.
A part of me still hungers for revenge—raw, slow, and merciless, a taste that lingers. Let the world watch him come apart; let him prove to them what I’ve always known—he’s a beautiful disaster, and a walking red flag. But for better or worse, he’s mine and revenge without reverence is just cruelty.
If he wants back what he ripped from me—my trust, my home, my heart—he needs to kneel and worship every shard he hopes to reclaim because I need him to prove I’m not collateral, not just another pawn in their games in his eyes. I’m not the girl they labelled a traitor because her mother betrayed them. I am currency. I am power. I am a thing of value and he will not spend me without counting every penny.
I need him to show me he means every beautiful lie, every pretty word he’s ever whispered. And God, I need to feel like I’m more than a dirty little secret. I want to be worshiped in the daylight, in full view, untouchable.
I finally know my worth, and accepting anything less simply isn’t enough anymore.
“I want to see you break for me,” I say, the words coming out harsher than I intended. I guess that’s what happens when you stop biting your tongue and start speaking your truth. “If there’s any hope for us, I need you to know how it feels to be small, smaller than I ever thought possible. I want you to feel that fall the way I felt it, so maybe you’ll stop stepping on me.”
His brows knit, confusion flashing in those emerald eyes I used to get lost in. Eyes that still haunt my every waking thought and most of my nightmares, too.
“You don’t get to beg with words, Matthew,” I say, cupping his jaw, feeling the scratch of his scruff against my hand. “You don’t get to show up with poetry in your mouth and think it fixes everything.”
His throat works. “I know.”
“Do you?” The laugh that comes out of me is a small, jagged thing.
“You say you’ll crawl,” I continue, voice quiet but still sharp as glass, “but what happens when the crawling gets hard? When it’s not dramatic or romantic? Just slow, excruciating, and humiliating with no end in sight.”
