Chapter 8
Vienna
Now
The lights flickered once, then twice, then shut off, cloaking her bedroom in darkness.
And for all these years, that had been enough. I had been content to watch, to adhere to our old routine and the unspoken rules.
But tonight… tonight, something felt different.
She betrayed you once…
Tools’s words echoed through my mind on a loop, refusing to give me a second’s peace, picking at something I had kept buried for far too long.
What the fuck was I doing?
Why was I creeping through enemy territory night after night for a woman who had given me nothing but fragments of herself?
Who had walked away from me without a second glance?
I had been content to slink into the background, taking comfort from knowing she was happy, living her life in safety.
But something had awakened the beast within me, and no longer did the lights keep him at bay.
I knew where the line was. I knew where she wanted me. Where she expected me to stay.
Tonight, though… tonight, I was struggling to stay behind the invisible barrier. Tonight, I wasn’t content to be her secret.
I wanted more.
I love you, Luke.
The memory of her voice, the whisper of her words, crept under my skin, igniting the familiar itch for her. For what we were.
Thousands of memories—her, my club, the moments we shared—they blurred together, shattering the illusion of peace, breaking through the invisible barriers we had erected after that night.
And now I couldn’t hold it back any longer.
Something had shifted within me.
I wanted her love. I wanted her tears. And I wanted her remorse.
For once, I wanted her to address what had happened. I wanted her on her knees, begging me for forgiveness.
And, I wanted the privilege of calling her mine once more.
Before I even knew what I was doing, my feet propelled me forward, and I was jumping over the fence, crossing over the grass and further into enemy territory.
I had been here enough over the years that I knew the comings and goings of every gang member.
The Riders didn’t operate the same way as the Devils.
They didn’t all live on one big compound.
They were spread throughout their territory, with only the president’s house and the clubhouse being in this area.
More’s my fortune, because it made slipping closer to Gabriella that much easier. It made avoiding the enemy that much simpler.
That way of thinking was exactly what had me climbing onto her balcony, a place I had no business being.
The metal railing was cold beneath my hands as I hauled myself up, my boots landing softly against the stone.
I paused for a moment, listening out of instinct more than necessity, but the night remained still.
No alarms were raised, no footsteps echoed in the distance, and no one came running to drag me back to where I belonged.
For all they did to keep Gabriella locked away from me, they failed to secure the one place I kept returning to.
A sinister smile played on my lips.
Good.
Straightening slowly, my gaze fixed immediately on the glass doors leading into her bedroom. The curtains were only half drawn, offering her just enough privacy from the outside world, but never quite enough to hide her completely. Not from me. Never from me.
“You really like me, don’t you, Luke?”
“No. I love you. And that’s enough.”
It hadn’t been enough. It was never enough. Not for her and not for her club.
And now, this silent stalking was not enough for me.
For years, I had respected that boundary.
I had stayed back, kept to the shadows, followed the same silent routine we had fallen into without ever acknowledging it aloud.
I had watched from the edges of her life, taking what little she chose to give me—a flicker of light, the movement of her shadow, the quiet reassurance that she was still alive, still breathing, still there.
Still mine.
My jaw tightened at the thought, something sharp and unwelcome cutting through me.
She wasn’t mine.
Not anymore.
That had been her choice, and I had let her make it.
That was the part that sat wrong, that twisted something deep in my chest until it felt almost unbearable.
I hadn’t chased her. I hadn’t dragged her back to where she belonged.
I hadn’t called on the club to retaliate, to burn everything she cared about to the ground for what she had done to me.
I had let her walk away from it all. Let her stand there in front of both clubs and tear me apart piece by piece while I took it, while I did nothing, while I let her go.
Because I loved her.
Because I thought that if I gave her space, if I gave her time, she would come back to me on her own.
My hand flexed at my side, the familiar weight of the knife in my hand grounding me as the reality of that thought settled in.
She never did.
All those years of waiting, of holding myself back, of convincing myself that distance was enough—that this silent, pathetic routine was enough—and for what? For scraps. For silence. For the flick of a light switch that meant nothing. Not really. Not in the grand scheme of things.
It had been a childish routine. Something two foolish teenagers did when sneaking around. And had become the crumbs she left me to keep me invested.
Something dark began to coil inside me, feeding on every memory I had tried to bury and every excuse I had made for her over the years. I had been patient. I had been understanding. I had convinced myself that what I was doing was right, that I was giving her what she needed.
In reality, I had just been standing still while she moved on without me.
Dante had been onto something with Rachel. He took what he wanted and dealt with the consequences later. Whilst I pined for what I wanted, dealt with nothing, and let life pass me by.
My grip tightened around the knife, the cold metal biting into my palm.
Not tonight.
Tonight, I wasn’t staying in the shadows. I wasn’t waiting for scraps. I wasn’t pretending that this was enough. Tonight, she was going to look at me. She was going to see me.
Really see me. All of me.
Not the man in the shadows. Her silent stalker. Her tormenter. She was going to see it all. Every piece of our history. Everything she had ruined. The life she had destroyed.
She was going to see, and she was going to fucking remember.
Whether she wanted to or not.
I stepped closer to the glass, closing the distance I had respected for far too long, until my reflection stared faintly back at me—darker, harder, a version of myself I barely recognised anymore.
Good.
Let her see what was left.
In the darkness, I saw her silhouette, brushing her long, dark hair at her vanity table, so blissfully unaware of the storm on her balcony.
And for a moment, I hesitated. Because I knew exactly what this meant.
Once I crossed this line, there would be no going back to the way things had been.
Once I had a taste of what it was like to be this close to her again, I knew I would return here night after night.
No more distance. No more quiet understanding. No more pretending that we could exist like this without consequences.
And then I saw the door to her bedroom open, and there stood Nico, barking out a command. I watched as Gabriella crossed the room and kissed his cheek, murmuring something that was just out of my reach.
And all hesitation left me. My grip on the knife tightened.
Because he was living the life that was meant for me. She had allowed him to take my place, willingly and openly giving him everything we had been forced to hide.
And as the door to her bedroom closed, I found my hand raising, the knife tapping against the glass, the sound sharp and deliberate.
I grinned as she jumped, her head snapping around to look at me. I didn’t look away. I didn’t move back. I didn’t give her the option of pretending she hadn’t seen me.
Scraping the knife down the window, I pressed closer, coming out of the shadows, until my body was against the glass, my face all she could see in the darkness, until there was nothing between us but this thin sheet of protection.
Her breathing became shallow and rapid, her chest heaving as she locked eyes with me. I saw her body trembling, but she couldn’t look away.
I could practically read the thoughts racing through her mind, but nothing in me wanted to show her mercy. Let her wonder. Let her feel that rush of adrenaline masked as fear. Let her realise on her own that her world was about to change.
Grinning at her again, I held her gaze, unmoving, watching every flicker of emotion cross her face as her eyes darted briefly to the door before snapping back to me.
And that’s when it hit me.
She wasn’t just scared of me.
She was scared for me.
She knew exactly what I was risking by being here. She remembered what this was—what we had been.
But I wasn’t going anywhere.
The memories came without warning, crashing over me as I stood there staring at her. Sneaking off on the back of my bike. Sitting in open fields while she braided her hair. Linking our fingers together, comparing the size of our hands like it meant a difference. Like it meant something.
It had meant everything.
We had built a lifetime out of stolen moments. And this? This was just the latest one.
A new chapter for us.
And standing there, separated by nothing but glass and everything we had become, I knew she felt it too.
So I didn’t move.
Not when her breathing steadied just enough to stop her chest from heaving so violently.
Not when the minutes stretched into hours, time passing heavily and suspended, as though the world had narrowed to nothing but the space between us.
Not even when the first faint hint of grey began to bleed into the sky behind me.
I stayed exactly where I was, watching her.
Committing every detail to memory.
The way her fingers curled slightly at her sides, like she didn’t know what to do with them. The way her gaze kept flicking to the door before returning to me, torn between instinct and something else she didn’t want to name. The way she didn’t run.
And that was the part that mattered to me the most. Because she could have screamed. She could have woken the entire house up and ended this the second it began. She knew what the consequence would be if I was caught here by my rivals.
And yet she didn’t.
A slow, knowing satisfaction settled within me.
Hours seemed to pass like that, neither of us breaking the moment, neither of us willing to be the first to look away. The tension didn’t ease, didn’t soften—it only shifted, changing shape as the night wore on, settling into something quieter and heavier. Something inevitable.
Because we were inevitable. We always had been. No matter what form our relationship looked like. And so I didn’t leave. I wasn’t capable of leaving.
Because I knew, deep down, that the second I walked away, something would change again. The distance would return. The silence. The illusion that this—whatever this was—could be ignored.
I wasn’t ready for that. Not anymore.
The sky lightened further, the darkness beginning to retreat, and with it came reality creeping back in. The world waking up. The risk increasing. The line I had already crossed becoming more dangerous with every passing second.
I saw it in her, too.
The shift. The awareness. The break in the illusion.
Her shoulders tensed slightly, her eyes flicking again towards the door, then back to me, more urgent this time.
Go.
She didn’t say it. She didn’t need to. It was written clearly on her face.
My jaw tightened, something in me resisting the idea of leaving, of stepping back into the shadows after finally standing in front of her like this. But I wasn’t stupid. Reckless, maybe. Unhinged, definitely.
But not stupid.
Not yet.
Although she was coming close to breaking me. To pushing me past the point of no return.
Slowly, deliberately, I straightened from the glass, dragging my gaze away from hers for the first time since she’d seen me. It felt wrong, like tearing something open that had only just begun to settle.
But this wasn’t over.
Not by a long shot.
My fingers tightened briefly around the knife before I lowered my hand, stepping back towards the edge of the balcony. The distance between us widened, but it didn’t feel the same as before.
Because now she knew.
Now she had seen me.
There was no going back to shadows and silence after this.
I held her gaze one last time, letting everything I wasn’t saying sit heavy in the space between us.
I grinned at her, a grin that said so much.
I haven’t forgotten. I haven’t forgiven. And you don’t get to pretend that I’m not here anymore.
I’m always fucking here.
Then, without another thought, I turned and vaulted over the railing, landing lightly on the grass below. The impact barely registered as I straightened, already moving, already slipping back into the darkness I had abandoned hours ago.
Only this time, it felt different. Because this time, I wasn’t leaving her behind. This wasn’t a retreat, it was a reprieve. I’d be back.
Over and over, I’d be back.
She chose me once, and I wasn’t waiting for her to do it again.
This time, she wouldn’t be offered the option.