Epilogue
A month later.
Inever thought peace could feel so much like penance.
The sun sets slower here. From this fourth-floor balcony, the world looks distant, like a painting you can admire but not touch. The traffic hums below, distant enough to forget, close enough to remind me I’m still alive.
My life has changed. It changed the moment I laid my eyes on her. I used to think obsession was power. That it belonged to broken men like me, chasing ghosts or dreams. That’s what it was worth getting obsessed with. Power. Revenge.
I used to laugh at men who lost themselves over a woman. I thought they were fools and pathetic. Driven by lust or fantasy, chasing shadows.
But now look at me—completely consumed by her.
Not just any woman. She’s carved into my thoughts like a scar that won’t fade. I used to think it took blood, fury, something grand to destroy a man.
Turns out it doesn’t take much.
Just a look. A voice. A gracious presence that contaminates your mind like venom.
I turn my back to the city and lean against the railings, inhaling my cigarette as the cool wind blows on my unbuttoned, sand-colored shirt.
It stirs the white curtains inside the apartment as the rays of the orange setting sun wash over the wooden furniture.
She’s sleeping on the queen-sized bed, wearing nothing but her black lace thong, nearly hugging my pillow.
The wind blows some strands of her hair, making her look more peaceful.
She dyed her hair some shades darker—I still can’t say she’s a brunette, though.
She is more like a ginger apricot, but her eyes now look a deeper shade of blue, like the sky on a sunny morning.
However, it’s not a significant change. Just enough to slip further into the needs of this new life.
I buzzed mine off the same day and shaved my stubble a bit shorter.
Besides, I got sick of the mirror showing me the same asshole who fucked everything up.
Now, I look like someone else. Feels good.
Cleaner. I’m a whole new man. She says I look sexier now, and I make sure to reward her for that every day—and night. Sometimes, even the whole night.
Nobody knows our names here. Nobody cares.
We don’t live big. No mansion, no staff, no champagne bullshit. Just this plain-ass apartment with cheap tile floors, a view of a half-dead palm tree, and each other.
But it’s fucking perfect, and I wouldn’t change it for the world.
There’s a big clay pot on the balcony, holding a rose bush that came with the house. Kate?ina called it a sign, so we bought the place.
She cares for it like it’s alive. Like it breathes for her. She says it reminds her why she fell for me.
She believes the rose symbolizes love. I know it’s something else. I know it’s her obsession, proof she’s already lost herself.
A piece of proof of my twisted manipulation, showing how easily I broke her and made her mine.
Of course, Grayson is behind all this. He’s a fucking tech genius and helped me bypass the prison’s security. He opened every locked door for me and let me do the dirty work, saving my girl.
I passed down to him everything I owned—the company, the ships, the mansion, the houses, and some of my shit to clean behind me. At first, he refused, but I stuck a knife to his throat, and he agreed. I had to make sure he’d be fine without me—his boss, or whatever the hell I am to him.
He bought us this apartment under our new identities here in S?o Paulo and ensured that we found some horrible jobs to start our new lives.
I am Eric Hoffman now, and I work in a car shop.
Kate?ina now lives under the name Emma Hoffman, and, of course, we tell people we’re married.
She works at a flower shop right opposite the shop where I work—just so I can watch what’s going on.
Of course, a few fuckers have tried to corner her every here and there, and I’ve stepped in like a good husband.
I accidentally killed two of them, but no one knows about it. They just went missing. Oops.
We’ve decided to stay here for some time until the dust settles, and then, we’ll see what we’ll do. Maybe we’ll go back home. Perhaps we’ll stay here or go somewhere else and start over. Nobody knows.
It’s been just a month since all that ended, but it seems like it was yesterday. I don’t regret anything.
I needed to know what she’d do when it all came down.
Would she scream my name to save herself?
Would she sell me out the second the world gave her an exit?
I had to know if that love she swore to me was real, or if it was just some bullshit fantasy she’d drop the minute things got hard.
So I let her sit in that fucking cell.
For three days.
Three goddamn days I’d been plotting and playing in my head how I’d kill every single son of a bitch that laid a hand on her or even talked to her.
I wanted her to look the end of the world in the face and still not let go of me.
But my little rose didn’t break.
She didn’t give me up.
She didn’t spit my name out to the bastards who would’ve loved to pin it all on me.
She kept her mouth shut. That’s when I fucking knew.
She’s mine. She’s fucking mine.
Because there is no other version of her life that makes sense without me in it.
I flick the cigarette from my fingers and walk inside the apartment. My eyes linger on her for a while longer. God, she’s so damn beautiful. She’s even prettier with this hair color.
I let my fingers trail across her cheek, enjoying the soft moan she exhales from my touch.
Maybe I saved her when I took her.
Or maybe she’s the one saving me now, pulling me from the wreckage of myself.
Either way, it doesn’t matter.
She’s mine. All mine.
And I’ll watch the whole goddamn world scream in flames before I ever let her go.
I am a sinner—a savage without a shred of remorse who deserves to burn in the pits of hell.
But every time I look at her innocent face, a holy silence covers the madness in me, and I feel the same feelings all over again.
Peace.
Serenity.
A pause in the chaos.
The End