22. Reth #2
My throat closes completely.
“It’s not your—”
"You're wrong," I snap, jaw clenched, words coming out wrecked. "What I did—"
“—was not your fault. None of it.”
“How would you know? You weren’t there.”
“Because I know you. Because I know you love me. Because I know you would never…ever…ever hurt me.”
The words hit harder than any punch Ian could have thrown. They sink in deep, past the scars, past the needle marks, past the rot Valeria left behind, and they burn.
I want to believe her.
God, I want it so badly it feels like another kind of withdrawal—shaking, desperate, clawing at the edges of me. But the other voice is louder. The one that still smells like that cell. The one that still feels her hands on me when I close my eyes.
I shake my head, stepping back until my shoulders hit the wall.
“You don’t understand what she did to me. What I let her—”
“You didn’t let her do anything.” Sophia closes the distance again, relentless in that quiet way of hers.
My knees feel weak. The room is too small. She’s too close, and her eyes are too green, too full of something I don’t deserve.
I want to pull her against me and bury my face in her neck until the memories stop screaming. I want to shove her away before I ruin her completely. Instead, I just stand there, fists clenched at my sides, breathing like I’ve run ten miles through hell.
“Cherry-red…” The nickname cracks on my tongue. I close my eyes. The fight drains out of me all at once, leaving nothing but exhaustion and that raw, bleeding seam in my chest that keeps getting wider every time she looks at me like I’m still worth saving.
But the shame won’t let me stay quiet.
“I made a vow,” I rasp, voice breaking. “To myself. To you.” I rub my palm over the back of my other hand, over the tattoo.
“I swore you would be the only woman I ever touched. The only one. That no matter how filthy I had to be for the rest of the world, my hands—my body—would only ever belong to you.” My throat closes, the words scraping out like glass. “And I broke it. I broke it, Sophia.”
“No.” She palms my cheek. “No, Reth. You didn’t break anything.”
“I did.” Warmth trickles down my face. “I broke it. The one promise I was sure I could keep, the one thing I knew for certain I had control over, that could only ever be yours, and I broke it. I fucking destroyed it.”
“Did you want it?” Her eyes search mine, and I go still.
“What?”
“Did you want her?”
“No. Fuck, no. I thought it was you. I was high, and I was dreaming it was you, and then suddenly…it was her.”
“There’s your answer, Reth. You didn’t want it. You didn’t ask for it. So how can it be your fault?”
“I dunno.” I tear myself away from her, creating distance. “Fuck!”
She turns to face me, and I hate the way she looks at me.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“How?”
“Like you see me. Like you trust me.” I take a breath. “Like you love me.”
“But I do. All those things, Reth. I do. And what happened in that cell doesn’t change any of it. Because it’s not your fault.”
A harsh, broken sound tears from my chest—not a sob, something worse.
My back hits the wall, and I slide down it.
My shoulders shake. My breath comes in ragged, ugly gasps.
I can feel the tears burning behind my eyes, but I fight them, because monsters don’t get to cry over their own failures.
Not when the woman they love is standing right there watching the wreckage.
“I was supposed to be better for you,” I choke out.
“I was supposed to protect you from everything—including me. And instead I let her turn me into… into that. Into something that still got hard while she touched me.” My voice cracks wide open.
“How the fuck am I supposed to touch you now? How am I supposed to look at you knowing what I did to you?”
“You mean what she did to you?”
I still. “This isn’t about what she did to me. It’s about what I did to you. What I—”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” Her voice is quiet, but there’s steel under it.
“This is absolutely about what she did to you. I’m not the one who got hurt.
You are. You’re the one who had your body taken from you.
You’re the one who was poisoned and used and broken until your own skin wasn’t yours anymore. Not me.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, closing my eyes, the words useless. “I’m so fucking sorry, Cherry-red. I tried. I swear I tried. But I wasn’t strong enough. I never am.”
The silence stretches.
Then her hands are on me—gentle but certain, sliding into my hair, tilting my face up. I keep my eyes squeezed shut, ashamed of the wetness on my lashes, ashamed of the way my whole body is trembling like it’s still in that cell.
“Open your eyes, Nazareth.”
I do. Because it’s her. Because I’ve never been able to deny her anything.
She’s kneeling in front of me, tears on her own cheeks, but her gaze is steady. Full of fire and grace and something so fierce it steals what’s left of my breath.
“You didn’t betray me,” she says softly. “You survived her. That’s what you did. You survived the worst thing anyone could do to a person.”
I shake my head, throat tight, but she doesn’t let me look away.
“What you did for me was you kept on breathing. You kept on fighting. You held on even though you had every reason not to. That’s what you did for me.”
She slides in between my legs, exactly like she did the day in the shower, when she pulled me back the first time. Her knees touching my inner thighs, her hands on my cheeks, forehead pressed to mine.
“You will not blame yourself for what your body did when it wasn’t under your control. What you will do is let me love you because you deserve to be loved. You hear me?”
The words sink in slow and deep, cracking through every layer of shame I’ve wrapped around myself. I reach for her with shaking hands, pulling her into me until she’s straddling my lap on the floor, her fingers tangled into my shirt.
“It was you, Sophia Sinclair. It was always you. I swear it.”
“I know.”
I bury my face in her neck, breathing her in—vanilla and orange peel and the faint trace of flour that always seems to cling to her now.
My arms lock around her waist, holding her so tight I’m probably bruising her, but she doesn’t complain. She just wraps herself around me tighter, one hand stroking through my hair like I’m something precious instead of the wreckage I feel like.
“I was so scared I’d never get to touch you again,” I confess against her skin, the words spilling out before I can stop them. “That I’d die in that cell with the last thing I ever felt being her hands instead of yours. Knowing that I never got to keep the promise I made you.”
“You kept it.” Her voice is soft but unshakable. “You came back to me. That’s what matters. The rest… we’ll carry it together. All the ugly parts. All the broken ones. I’m not afraid of them, Nazareth. I’m not afraid of you.”
I pull back just enough to look at her. Her eyes are red-rimmed and shining, but there’s no hesitation in them. No disgust. Just that endless, impossible love that somehow keeps choosing me even when I make it so fucking hard.
“I don’t deserve you,” I whisper.
“You keep saying that.” She leans in, brushing her lips against mine—soft, reverent, a promise.
“But I’m the one who gets to decide what I deserve.
And I decided a long time ago that it’s you.
All of you. The man and the monster. The one who builds houses and the one who bleeds for me. I want every piece.”
My control snaps.
I kiss her like a man who’s been drowning and finally breaks the surface.
Deep and desperate, tasting salt from both our tears, pouring every fractured apology and every ounce of gratitude into it.
My hands slide under her shirt, palms pressing against warm skin like I need to remind myself she’s real.
That she’s here. That she’s choosing me even after everything.
She moans softly into my mouth, fingers tightening in my hair, and for the first time in weeks the darkness in my chest feels a little smaller. Not gone. Never gone. But smaller.
When we finally break apart, foreheads pressed together again, I whisper against her lips. “I’m still terrified I’ll ruin you.”
“Then ruin me beautifully,” she breathes. “I’ll let you. As long as you stay.”