Chapter 70
CEZAR
Lying in bed wide awake, I followed the red roses winding across Lina’s back with my fingertips. They guarded her heart like something sacred. “The tattoo suits you well.” I dipped my head lower, letting my words settle beside her ear. “Especially the color.”
She sighed, shifting closer, and her voice echoed into the dark. “My mother loved red roses. It was just the three of us, so three roses.”
My chest tensed. I moved slower, memorizing every curve, every line of ink etched permanently into her skin. My other hand found my chest, feeling the raised edges of the rose she gave me.
Her voice softened, pride slipping through it with a quiet laugh. “My dad… he used to call me his little red rose.”
The world stopped.
Air trapped in my lungs. My body seized against hers until I couldn’t move. The room tilted around me, threatening to collapse inward.
Little red rose.
Her father’s voice.
That night. That memory.
His little red rose.
Her words lodged in me like shrapnel.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
Don’t react.
Don’t breathe too loud.
Don’t let her feel how you’re breaking.
Don’t let her know the truth lying beside her.
Wolf in sheep’s skin. That’s all I am.
A liar, a monster hiding under her touch.
Everything was my fault—all of her pain and her nightmares, her scars.
The childhood that was stolen in a single night.
Every fucking part of it runs through my veins.
Through my bloodline. Through my father.
Yet, here she is, tender and trusting, giving me pieces of her that no one else has ever seen.
I’m filth. I never should’ve put my hands on her.
Tears distorted my vision. I buried my face into her shoulder before she could see it, swallowing the sob trying to break free from my throat.
I held myself rigid against her back, barely keeping it together.
I wanted to rip myself open, let it all spill out, but I couldn’t.
If she ever found out—if she ever looked at me with disgust—I’d burn alive.
How could she ever forgive me once she knew?
How do I survive losing her?
How do I live with this?
I can’t.
I can’t.
I’m going to kill him.
That thought turned my blood cold. My father. The architect of every fucking ruin in my life. I will tear him apart with my bare hands. It wouldn’t undo any of this, though maybe it would quiet the screaming in my skull long enough for me to breathe again.
“Please…” The word barely made it past my lips. “Please surrender to me. Just once.”
Lina wavered beneath me. I felt it instantly. The instinctive resistance coursing through her body, subtle enough to be missed. Control was stitched into her being as deeply as the roses inked across her skin.
For a second, I thought she would refuse. I fought myself. “Please,” I begged.
Her breath stalled. Then she carefully reached back for my wrist and guided my hand to her throat.
Surrender.
I lost myself in her like a drowning man, hard enough to steal the air from our lungs. Every movement turned frantic almost immediately, desperate in a way I couldn’t control anymore. My body begged where my mouth failed. She took me in like salvation I didn’t deserve.
I couldn’t slow down. Couldn’t fucking stop.
All I saw was her. The roses across her back.
The slope of her shoulder. Her hair spread across the pillow.
My grip bruised her hips as I drove into her harder, chasing something impossible.
Forgiveness, maybe. Punishment. Something violent enough to bury this guilt.
You’ll hate me when you know.
My tears disappeared against her skin. I was falling apart so badly that every breath was a struggle.
“Cezar.” Her voice softened around my name. It almost sounded like mercy. She didn’t know she had been keeping me alive.
My lifeline.
A strangled noise escaped me. I covered her mouth, hand shaking against her lips. “Don’t,” I choked out.
She stiffened. “Cezar, what’s wrong?” Her words muffled by my palm.
I couldn’t answer. I kept moving inside her, rougher now. If I stopped everything would cave in. Then I came apart, my body spasming enough to hurt. And I cried, holding her tightly, knowing now I couldn’t keep her forever.
Her body trembled with mine, and for one horrifyingly beautiful moment, it felt like we were falling apart together. When it was over, the silence was deafening. It was too real.
Lina immediately started turning toward me. “What the fuck is going on?”
I desperately covered her eyes before she could look at me.
She latched onto my wrist instantly. “Cezar?”
Then I kissed her before she could ask anything else. Deep enough to silence her. Deep enough to hide the truth. I had to shield her from me.
The kiss tasted like goodbye.
“I’m sorry, my Petal,” I whispered against her lips, tears soaking her cheeks. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
“For what?”
I almost stayed. God, I almost begged her to make me stay.
She still clung to me, breathing jagged from moments ago, and every selfish part of me wanted to bury myself back into her and forget the rest of the world existed.
But if she looked at me long enough, she would see it, every rotten thing.
And some sins couldn’t be forgiven. Better she remembered me like this—her Cezar—than see the monster inside of me.
She reached for me again as I moved back, and I caught the confusion in her voice when she said my name this time. Careful now. Like she still thought she could calm me down if she just understood what was happening.
“What are you doing??”
I didn’t answer. I kissed her one last time instead, pouring everything I couldn’t say into it, stealing it like a thief before forcing myself to stand. The chill hit me immediately as I stumbled away from the bed.
“Cezar.”
I refused to look at her.
My clothes were scattered around the room, and my hands shook badly enough that I missed grabbing my shirt the first time. Behind me, sheets rustled.
“What’s going on?” she asked quietly. “Why are you acting weird?”
I dragged my pants on without answering.
“Cezar.” Sharper this time. “Talk to me.”
Every breath turned shallow. I clenched my hands hard enough for the rose carved into my chest to throb.
I’ll kill him.
The thought took hold again. Violent. Unrelenting.
“Cezar, what the fuck is happening?”
I grabbed the dagger I had gifted her from the nightstand, keeping my focus on anything else. I wouldn’t fucking survive looking at her. “I have to go home.”
Then, “What the hell do you mean you have to go home?”
I shoved my shirt over my head, movements rough and rushed.
“No.” Bare feet hit the floor behind me. “No, what are you talking about?”
I started toward the door just as her hand wrapped around my arm.
“Cezar, that isn’t your home anymore.”
I faltered. The realization hollowed me out all over again because she was mine, and I was about to rip myself out of her life with my own fucking hands.
She deserves so much better than me.
I carefully untangled myself from her before I did something weak like stay.
“Look at me.” Her voice cracked slightly this time. “Please just fucking talk to me.”
I still couldn’t do it. If I did, I would break before I ever made it to him.
To him.
To the man who made me this way.
To end it all.
If I stayed, she’d see me.
And if she saw me, she’d never forgive me.
The floor creaked under my feet as I willed myself forward. Every instinct begged me to turn around and pretend none of this was real. Pretending was what brought me here in the first place. I couldn’t keep living inside this lie.
“Cezar.”
Her fingers trapped mine just before I reached the door. The last shred of restraint snapped. I turned and folded her into my arms. Holding her for one selfish second. The lasting tremor in her body seeped into mine.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered against her hair.
Then I let her go. Not hard. Enough to create distance before I yanked the door open and slipped into the hallway.
“Cezar—”
I threw the door closed between us and shoved the dagger through the handle just as the first bang rattled the wood.
“What the fuck are you doing?!”
Another hit against the door. Harder this time.
“Open the fucking door!”
I leaned my forehead on the other side of the door, trying to steady my breathing.
Then quieter. “Please.”
My eyes squeezed shut as I fought myself.
“Zar… Please don’t do this,” she said through the door, sounding close to tears. “Don’t go back there. Whatever this is, we can figure it out together.”
My throat was so raw I could barely force the words out.
“Adelina… I love you.”