Page 66 of The Ruin I Chose

Thank you for the most unforgettable ten days of my life.

Hope you have it in your heart to forgive me.

Hopefully, someday, when we’re older and wiser, our paths will cross again.

-Roxanne

Each line cracked something open inside me. Her daughter. Her silence. Her guilt. Her truth.

And then I remembered she hadn’t said she was married that day—she’d said she had a husband. And now I understood the difference.

I rubbed her name with my thumb. Picked up the surveillance file the informant had delivered. Looked at her pictures. Her face. Her eyes. The way she looked at me like I was the only man in the world. No photograph should have had the power to undo me—but hers did. And her voice still rang in my ears.

I may have fallen too fast… I’m officially fucked.

I closed my eyes.

I hadn’t touched another woman, didn’t want to. Hadn’t stopped thinking about her. Even without trying, she had me hooked onto her. There was something strange that even I didn’t understand that drew me towards her. Even now.

Antonio had told me the day she left, “You’ve aged twenty years in two days.”

I looked like hell. Miserable—and everyone around me could see it. I had become angrier and would get mad over the smallest of things. All the anger I couldn’t aim at her spilled onto my people.

But she had called. Even if by accident. And she had spoken. Even if not to me. And now, I knew. She hadn’t forgotten. She hadn’t moved on. And neither had I.

I read the letter again, absorbing each word. I felt betrayed—but not by her. By the world that taught her to shrink. By the silence that made her believe she had to lie to be loved.

And I was angry at myself—for not seeing the truth sooner.

I sat in my office, the emerald necklace glinting under the low light. Her words burned into me like ink on skin.

You said I was real. And I was.

I closed my eyes. She was gone.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I paced the villa, the letter folded in my pocket, the necklace untouched on my desk. Her voice echoed in my ears—like a ghost, or worse, like temptation dressed in memory. It hollowed me out. I thought about the life she returned to. About the man who hadn’t fought for her.

And then I called Santino. I had to know everything. Who she was, the people in her life. The skeletons she kept buried.

I didn’t care about principles anymore. Didn’t care about her boundaries. What she made me feel had already cost me my judgment. I just needed to know about the woman who had tormented my thoughts for months had almost said she loved me. Almost. And that was enough to unravel me.

I needed to know her—not the version she gave me, but the one she hid. The one she protected. I wanted to know what made her cry when no one was watching. What she feared. Who she trusted. Who or what she ran from.

I wanted her truth, even if it came from someone else’s mouth. Not the curated version. The version she’d never meant for me to see. The raw one. The one she buried beneath duty and shame.

I didn’t care where it came from. I didn’t care what it cost.

Because I was already hers. Even if she didn’t want me anymore. Even if it came at a cost.

Because I couldn’t stop.

Not now. Not after that letter. Not after her voice. Not after she ruined me.

CHAPTER 27

ROXANNE

China—where technology meets design, and every corner holds a new possibility. The city was electric—neon signs, endless markets, the hum of opportunities. Guangzhou pulsed around me, alive and relentless, but I felt none of it.