Page 147 of The Ache That Stayed

And then—I saw her. Standing there. Still. Eyes wide. Jeans. Shirt. Hair pulled back.

Roxanne.

And then—the blood.

On her hands. Across her face. Her clothes. For one second, everything else disappeared.

I crossed the space in seconds, hands already on her face, turning it, checking her, assessing—no obvious injuries, no immediate threat, but her body was rigid, wound too tight. I looked for damage, for blood that wasn’t hers, for anything that told me I was already too late.

“Where are you hurt?”

Her breath hitched, uneven, eyes still wide like she hadn’t come back into herself yet.

“Not mine.”

Relief hit so hard my knees nearly gave out. My gaze dropped past her—

To him. Still sitting in his chair. Still smiling.

Darius adjusted slightly, one hand pressed against the knife buried in his chest like it was nothing more than an inconvenience. Blood soaked through his shirt, slow and dark, but his expression didn’t falter. If anything, it sharpened.

“Touching,” he murmured, voice rough but amused. “Really.”

My gun was already in my hand. So was his. I saw it the second his fingers moved. His arm lifting. The angle directed at her.

“You’ll always be nothing but—”

I didn’t let him finish. I moved fast. My hand hit her shoulder, shoving her out of the line of fire just as the shot rang out—

At the same time, I fired. The sound tore through the space, loud enough to split thought in half. His body jerked.

Darius slumped back into the chair, the gun slipping from his hand, his head tilting slightly to the side. That smile was still there, a final, sickening taunt etched onto a corpse dressed in amusement.

Behind me, Roxanne screamed.

“NO—”

The sound barely registered. Because everything else went quiet. My vision flickered. Blurred and sharpened again. The gun slipped loose from my fingers. The world tilted slightly—and then I felt it. The burn, spreading through my chest.

My knees gave. And through the blur, I found her.

Only her.

CHAPTER 39

Santino

“NO—”

The sound tore through everything. Roxanne reached me before I even realised I’d stepped back. Her hands clutched at me, her face pale with terror, lips moving too quickly for me to make sense of the words.

For a second, none of it felt real.

“Santino—”

My name didn’t sound right in her mouth. It broke halfway through, like she was choking on it. I followed her hands without thinking.

Down.