Page 126 of Maddening Fixation

The letters stopped.

Maybe prison had finally broken him.

Maybe he’d realized the woman writing back wasn’t the woman he’d fallen in love with.

Or maybe...

He’d simply run out of hope.

But every letter I exchanged with Romeo while pretending to be Yarina drew me closer to a man who never truly knew me.

Every reply carried another piece of my heart, hidden between ink and paper.

I knew it was wrong. I knew it was a betrayal. Yet those letters became the closest I’d ever come to knowing him.

Yarina had been certain Romeo Flynn would die behind those prison walls.

After all, he’d been sentenced to life.

She never waited for him. She never mourned him.

Before long, she’d moved on... to his own brother.

Their relationship became the talk of the mafia, while Romeo rotted in a prison cell believing the woman he loved was still waiting for him.

Looking back now, I wasn’t sure Yarina had ever truly loved either of them.

She loved power.

Status.

The security that came with standing beside the most powerful man in the room.

And now...

The very man whose letters I’d cherished for two years stood only a few feet away, looking at me with disgust.

To him, I was nothing more than a selfish thief.

The woman who had stolen the life that should’ve belonged to Yarina.

If only he knew the truth.

Yarina never cared enough to read a single one of his letters.

She never wrote back. She never gave him hope.

Never stayed awake wondering whether he’d survive another night.

She never gave him a reason to keep fighting.

I did.

Romeo closed the remaining distance between us.

Blood continued flowing from his wounded hand, running along his wrist before dripping steadily onto the marble.

He was so close now that I could smell the unmistakable metallic scent of fresh blood.