I know those fists. I know that rage. I know that silence. It’s Steel.
Even if they never say his name. Even if the Club scrubs the cameras. Even if the cops chalk it up to “gang retaliation.”
I know.
And the realization hits so hard, I have to grip the counter to stay upright. The man I love is slipping deeper into Tama’s shadow with every blow. The same shadow that swallowed his childhood. His innocence. His father. His future.
And now? It’s coming for him, too.
I close my eyes, but the images don’t stop. Steel with blood on his knuckles. Steel with fury carved into his ribs. Steel breaking himself to protect me. Steel drowning in the violence he inherited.
A sound escapes me. A half sob, half breath, all pain.
I sink onto a stool, blanket slipping from my shoulders. “I see you becoming him,” I whisper to the empty room. “And we can’t watch it happen.”
I can’t be the witness to his undoing. Not again. Not like this. Because loving Steel feels like standing barefoot at the edge of a cliff, beautiful and deadly, breathtaking and devastating.
And the truth I’ve been trying not to say out loud suddenly becomes clear. If I stay…
I’ll be the reason he jumps.
The decision hits me hard and final, like a punch I didn’t see coming. I have to leave. Not because I don’t love him. But because I do.
More than is safe. More than is rational. More than is survivable. And I have to take my secret with me. The one thing that could bind us together, or destroy everything he is trying to protect.
I press a hand to my stomach, breath shaking, fear threading through my ribs like wire.
Steel will break the world for the people he loves. Which means, if he knew the truth…
He’d burn every enemy, every brother, every law, every line. He’d become exactly what I begged him not to. I whisper into thesilent kitchen, voice cracking. “I can’t let him become Tama for me.”
And with that truth echoing in the chilly morning light, the decision is made. I have to leave him. And I have to leave now, before love becomes war. Before Isaiah becomes a monster. Before my secret forces his hand. Before I become the reason he destroys himself.
I make a rash decision and grab my keys and a coat before I hurry out of my house, locking the door behind me. The cold hits me instantly, sharp enough to steal my breath. Snowflakes cling to my lashes and melt into hot streaks down my cheeks.
I pause on the porch for one trembling heartbeat, scanning the street, the shadows, the places a black sedan could hide. Nothing moves. It’s all too still, too quiet. I can’t stay here. Not with Steel’s voice echoing in every room, not with fear breathing down my neck, not with a secret burning a hole in my chest.
I hurry to the car, pulse skipping wild as the wind cuts through me, as if the universe is holding its breath while I run from it.
I pull out onto the street and head back toward Mt. Pleasant. The roads haven’t been plowed yet. Fresh snow lies untouched across the asphalt, thick enough to hide the lines, thin enough that my tires hum and slide when I take the first turn out of my neighborhood.
I shouldn’t be driving. Not like this. Not with hands that won’t stop trembling and a heart that feels like it’s cracking down the center. But sitting still would kill me faster.
The world outside the windshield is a wash of white and gray. The kind of quiet danger that looks peaceful until you’re buried in it.
My wipers squeak across the glass. The heater fights to warm the air. But nothing touches the cold in my bones.
I’m leaving Steel. I’m leaving him because I love him, and somehow that’s the cruelest sentence I’ve ever had to live through.
I grip the wheel tighter. “You’re not saving him,” I murmur to myself. “You’re just trying not to help him drown.” The words don’t help.
My phone buzzes in the cupholder, screen lighting up withLeah'sname. Of course, she’d call today. On the morning after I fell apart in a garage lit by love and grief and something too dangerous to touch again.
I let it ring twice. Then I answer, voice rough. “Hey.”
“Aria?” Leah’s voice is sharp with concern. “You sound like you swallowed gravel. Are you okay?”
No. Not remotely. “I’m… tired,” I say, which is the safest sliver of truth I can manage.
