“What if I don’t want to know?” he asked finally, his voice barely above a whisper. “What if I’d rather just... leave it alone? Let the past stay buried?”
“You can’t.” I cupped his face in my hands, forcing him to hold my gaze. “Because it’ll always be there, haunting you. Hovering over everything you do, every choice you make. And you’ll never be able to fully move forward until you face it. Until you know everything and can finally make peace with it.”
“Move forward with you, you mean.” There was an edge to his voice, something defensive and scared.
“With anyone. With yourself. With life.” I kissed him softly, trying to pour all my love and understanding into that single gesture. “With Grace. But yes... with me too.”
He closed his eyes, and I saw the war playing out across his face. The desire to know versus the fear of what he’d learn. The need for truth versus the seductive comfort of ignorance. The pull of the future versus the weight of the past.
“Tomorrow,” he said finally, his voice rough with emotion. “I’ll read more tomorrow.”
“Promise?” I needed to hear him say it again, needed that commitment.
“Promise.”
I settled back against his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart beneath my ear, feeling the rise and fall of his breathing, and hoped desperately that he meant it. That he wouldn’t find another excuse, another reason to put it off.
Because as much as I’d loved the week we’d had, the passion, the connection, the pure unbridled joy of being together, I knew it couldn’t last. Not really. Not while Christina’s secrets still hung between us, unfinished and unresolved, like a storm cloud waiting to break.
He needed to face the darkness before he could fully step into the light.
And I would be here, waiting, when he did. No matter what those pages revealed. No matter how much pain they caused. I would be his anchor, his safe harbor, his home.
I just hoped it would be enough.
WHAT IT COST TO LEAVE…
This is the secret I’ve been avoiding.
The one I’ve danced around for pages and pages, circling closer and then pulling back at the last moment like someone afraid to touch fire. The one I’ve convinced myself I didn’t need to tell you because maybe some truths are better left buried. Maybe some confessions are too heavy for anyone else to carry.
But if I’ve learned anything from cancer, it’s that death doesn’t erase the truth. It just leaves it behind for someone else to find. It sits there waiting like a landmine in the wreckage of everything we built together.
So here it is.
The truth. The whole truth. The one thing I’ve never told another living soul.
Everyone believed Titan was killed by a rival club. That’s the story Steele and Stone told. The story the club accepted without question because it made sense in their world. The story I helped sell with my silence and my carefully practiced grief.
I don’t know if anyone ever questioned it after I left. I don’t know if anyone ever dug deep enough to uncover what really happened. Maybe they did and chose to let it rest. Maybe they didn’t because they were afraid of what they’d find. By the time you read this, I suppose it won’t matter.
What matters is that you know.
What matters is that someone knows the woman I really was. The woman I became.
Titan wasn’t killed by a rival club.
He was killed by me.
God, even now my hands are shaking as I write those words. The pen keeps slipping between my fingers. I’ve stopped three times already just to breathe.
I’ve replayed that night so many times over the years that parts of it feel more real than yesterday. More real than this morning. More real than anything else in my entire life. Other parts are blurred around the edges, soft and distant, like my mind is trying to protect me from myself. Like there’s still some small mercy left in how memory works.
I wish I could tell you there was a dramatic moment. Some final betrayal. Some terrible thing Titan did that pushed me over the edge and left me with no other choice.
There wasn’t.
The truth is so much uglier than that. So much more human.
