Chapter Fifty-Two #2
My vision blurred as hot tears gathered at the corners of my eyes, threatening to spill over. I blinked hard, forcing myself to focus through the haze, forcing myself to look at the second document, a letter, written in that same careful, measured script.
My dearest Melissa,
By the time you read this, I will have made a choice that I know you won’t understand. That you’ll hate me for. And you have every right to.
I wanted to give you the world. I wanted to give you that house, that life, that future we talked about in whispers when we thought no one was listening.
I wanted to be the man who woke up next to you every morning, who taught his classes and came home to you every night, who built something real and good and untouched by the darkness I’ve spent my life running from.
But wanting something and being able to have it are two different things.
The truth is, I’ve been lying to myself. Telling myself I could walk away, that I could leave this life behind and pretend it never existed. That I could be normal for you. With you.
But I can’t. Not while the people who killed Travis are still out there, still hunting, still threatening everything you and I care about.
You asked me once what I was willing to sacrifice for the people I love. I didn’t have an answer then. I do now.
Everything.
I’m willing to sacrifice everything—my freedom, my future, my soul if necessary, to make sure those I care about are safe. To make sure they can live the life they deserve, even if I can’t be part of it.
This world is a monster, Melissa. I know that. But it’s a monster I understand. One I can control. And if controlling it means you get to sleep at night without fear, without looking over your shoulder, without wondering if today is the day someone comes for you, then it’s worth it.
I know you’ll argue. You’ll say I’m throwing my life away, that this isn’t what I wanted, that you never asked for this sacrifice. And you’re right. You didn’t ask for any of this. But I’m giving it to you anyway because I love you more than I’ve ever loved anything in my life.
The house is yours. The deed is in your name. It’s paid for, free and clear. No strings, no conditions. It’s the one thing I can give you that’s untouched by all of this, a place that’s just yours, where you can build whatever life you choose and raise Danika and your child in peace.
I wish things could be different. I wish I could be the man you deserve, the one who takes you to faculty dinners and argues about literature over breakfast and grows old with you in that house with the garden.
But I’m not that man. I never was.
I’m the man who kills to protect what’s his. Who burns the world down to keep you safe. Who walks into darkness so you can stay in the light.
And I’d do it again. A thousand times over.
I love you, Melissa. I will always love you.
Even if you hate me for this.
Especially if you hate me for this.
Yours always... Rowen
The letter slipped from my hands, the paper fluttering to the ground like a wounded bird. I couldn’t hold it anymore, couldn’t bear the weight of his words, the finality of them. The ink seemed to burn itself into my memory, each carefully chosen phrase a brand against my soul.
“No,” I whispered, the sound barely audible even to my own ears. “No, this isn’t—He can’t—”
My knees buckled beneath me, my legs suddenly unable to support my weight. I would have hit the floor hard if Sinclair hadn’t caught me, his hands firm and steady on my shoulders as he guided me into the nearest chair. The world tilted and spun around me.
“Breathe, Melissa,” he said quietly, his voice cutting through the roaring in my ears. “Just breathe.”
But I couldn’t. The air wouldn’t come, no matter how hard I tried to draw it in.
My chest was too tight; my throat was too constricted by grief and disbelief.
Everything hurt—my heart, my lungs, my bones.
Everything. It was as if my entire body was rejecting this reality, refusing to accept what I’d just read.
“He’s giving up his life,” I choked out, the words raw and broken. “He’s giving up everything. His future, his dreams, his very existence.”
“Yes,” Sinclair said simply, his tone maddeningly calm.
“I didn’t ask him to do this. I never... I would never.” My voice cracked, splintering into a sob.
“I know.”
“Then why?” I looked up at him, tears streaming down my face unchecked, blurring my vision. “Why won’t you stop him? You have the power. You’re the only one who could prevent this. You could...”
“I could,” Sinclair agreed, his expression unreadable. “But I won’t.”
“Why not?” The question came out as a desperate cry.
He crouched down in front of me, his expression grave, his eyes searching mine with an intensity that made me want to look away.
“Because this is his choice, my dear. His sacrifice. And taking that away from him, denying him the right to protect you and others in the only way he knows how, would be crueler than anything this world could do to him.”
His words hung in the air between us, heavy and suffocating.
“That’s bullshit,” I spat, my voice cracking with barely contained rage. “You just don’t want to lose your hold on him. You want him in the IRA because it benefits you. Because he’s useful to you, because he’s loyal and strong and willing to do whatever dirty work you ask of him.”
“Perhaps,” Sinclair said, not denying it.
His honesty was almost more infuriating than a lie would have been.
“But that doesn’t make what I said any less true.
Rowen Shay is many things, a fighter, a professor, a man caught between two worlds who’s never quite belonged to either.
But above all else, he is a protector. It’s in his blood, his bones, his very soul.
It’s what drives him, what defines him. And you, Dr. Jefferson, are what he’s chosen to protect. ”
“I don’t want his protection if it costs him his life,” I said, my voice breaking on the last word.
“Then you don’t understand him as well as you think you do.
” Sinclair stood, straightening his suit with methodical precision, as if we were discussing nothing more consequential than the weather.
“Because for Rowen, there is no cost too high when it comes to keeping those he cares about safe. Not his freedom. Not his future. Not even his life. He would burn this entire city to the ground if it meant you and others would survive the flames.”
I stared at the letter on the floor, at the deed still clutched in my trembling hands.
The paper was expensive, official, embossed with legal seals that made it all too real.
The house. The life. The future he’d promised me over whispered conversations in the dark, when the world felt small enough to hold in our joined hands.
All of it bought with his soul. All of it paid for with a devil’s bargain I never asked him to make.
“I hate him,” I whispered, my words tasting like ash in my mouth. “I hate him for doing this. For making this choice without me, for deciding my life was worth more than his, for leaving me here with nothing but a house and broken promises.”
“I know,” Sinclair said softly, and for just a moment, I heard something almost like sympathy in his voice. “But you also love him. And that’s why this hurts so much.”
He was right.
God help me, he was right.
I loved Rowen Shay with every fractured piece of my heart.
Loved him with a ferocity that terrified me, that made me want to scream and break things and tear the world apart to get him back.
Loved him in a way that felt both like salvation and damnation, like drowning and finally learning to breathe.
But he was already gone. Already swallowed by the shadows and the violence and the darkness that claimed him long before I ever had the chance.
He’d made his choice. Signed his name in blood and walked into the shadows, all so I could stay in the light.
All so I could have the life he thought I deserved, the one he believed he could never give me while he was still breathing.
And there wasn’t any damn thing I could do to stop him.
There was no cavalry coming, no last-minute rescue, no way to rewrite the ending of this tragedy we’d stumbled into together.
I sat there in Sinclair’s office, surrounded by the remnants of a future that would never be, and let myself shatter.
Let the tears come, hot and angry and endless.
Let the sobs tear through me until I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything but feel the unbearable weight of losing him.
Because sometimes love wasn’t enough.
Sometimes it wasn’t the grand force that conquered all, that broke down barriers and rewrote destinies.
Sometimes, it was just another word for goodbye.