Chapter 15
Gabriella
Now
Hours later, I was back in my bed, enclosed in the darkness, the pitch-black welcoming me like an old friend.
Lying on my stomach, my back far too scratched up to rest on, I wondered how my life had taken such a drastic turn.
My dad hadn’t always been the kindest—especially if I compared it to the comfort and warmth I had seen Crash display towards his club. But I had to believe he always had my best interests at heart… so long as it didn’t affect the club.
Yes, on that fateful night, the night where everything had been destroyed, he had been mercilessly cruel. But other than that, I was his princess. Everyone knew it.
Now I was nothing more than a sex slave.
And, unfortunately, everyone knew that, too.
Every part of my body hurt, but I could ignore that. I could retreat to the furthest corner of my mind and block out the physical pain, but I couldn’t block out the marks on my soul. The way my very essence screamed in protest.
I was tired. So very, very tired.
I wanted to look. I wanted to punish myself.
Hidden underneath my bed, buried beneath a loose floorboard, was him. Us. A memento of our relationship. A bracelet, a letter, and a picture that tore my heart to pieces.
But if I looked, I would remember. And if I remembered what had once been mine, and all I had lost… I wouldn’t survive it.
Not tonight, not when every piece of me, body and mind, was so fragile.
And so I continued laying on my stomach, my pillow cuddled to my chest beneath me, pitiful tears falling from my eyes.
How long I lay there, I have no idea. The night crept darker, the clubhouse quietened, and life stilled… Until it was just me, and memories assaulting me.
And then I heard it—the noise that had my heart jumping in my chest, and then sinking to my toes.
He was here again.
My eyes shot to the window, and just as I predicted, there he was.
My saviour.
My hero.
My biggest regret.
My forbidden, forgotten love.
I frowned, eyeing him as though he would disappear at any minute if I dared believe he was here for me.
But it was undeniable. After all these years, he was no longer content to hide in the trees, waiting for my signal, our routine, the thing that reassured him I was safe. Now he wanted to see for himself. Now he wanted more.
And now he was closer than he ever had been before. Even through the blur of tears still clinging to my lashes, I saw how tightly he was pressed against the glass of my window.
No trees to conceal him, no half-hidden shadows to protect him.
He was close. Far too close. And goddamn if that didn’t thrill me, when everything inside me screamed that I should be horrified.
My breath caught in my throat as my eyes adjusted to the dark, taking him in properly, and my stomach tightened at what I saw.
He was unravelling before my eyes. His body was pressed so tight against the glass, his hand braced beside him, his head dipped slightly forward as though the weight of it was too much to carry.
For a moment, I thought I was imagining it, that my mind was twisting what I wanted to see into something more than it was.
But then I saw it.
The slow, uneven rise and fall of his shoulders.
The way his breath hit the glass and bloomed faintly against it, fogging the space between us in soft, fleeting patches that disappeared almost as quickly as they formed.
He had never done that before.
Even the first time he had come this close, there had been control in it. A line he hadn’t quite crossed, even as he stood right on the edge of it. Then, it had felt dangerous, but measured. Like he understood what was at stake.
Now… now it felt like he didn’t care. Or worse, like he had nothing left to lose.
My fingers curled into the pillow beneath me, my body staying perfectly still even as everything inside me began to unravel.
What was he doing? Did he not understand how reckless this was?
If anyone saw him… my heart stuttered painfully at the thought, the image forcing itself into my mind before I could stop it. Nico. The club. What they would do if they caught him here, lurking outside my window like this, like he were something that belonged to me.
Like I belonged to him.
A shaky breath left me, my throat tightening as I forced the thought away. He would be dead before he even had the chance to fight back. And it would be my fault. Just like it almost had been before.
The memory pressed in, uninvited and unwelcome, sharp enough to make my eyes sting all over again. The last time. The choice I had made. The way I had torn us apart with my own hands because it had been the only way to keep him safe.
I had let him go.
I had watched him walk away.
I had destroyed the only thing that had ever felt like it was mine.
And now he was here.
Undoing it all, step by step, breath by breath, until there was nothing left of the distance I had forced between us.
My gaze locked onto him, tracing the outline of a man I knew as well as I knew myself, even now, even after everything. There was something different about him, something in the way he held himself, in the tension that radiated from him even through the barrier between us.
As our eyes connected, I saw his breathing falter, shuddering against the glass in shallow puffs. His nostrils flared, his hand clenching into a tight fist.
He looked… wrong.
Not physically. Not in any way that I could easily explain.
But I felt it.
The same way I had always felt him.
Something had shifted. Something inside him had cracked.
And standing there, pressed so close to the glass, breathing like that, like he needed to see me, like he needed to be as close as he could possibly get without breaking through entirely…
It was desperation.
And every part of me understood that. Every weak, broken, utterly ruined part of me understood the wild, frenzied desperation.
Understood the need to be close, even when it would destroy you.
Understood the way the past could reach out and drag you back under, no matter how hard you tried to escape it.
Understood him.
My fingers tightened further, nails pressing into the fabric of the pillow as I fought against it, against the pull that had never truly gone away.
This was wrong.
All of it was wrong.
He shouldn’t be here and I shouldn’t be looking back at him.
I shouldn’t feel anything other than fear at the sight of him standing outside my window, risking his life for something that no longer existed.
But I did.
God help me, I did.
Slowly, carefully, I shifted, pushing myself up just enough that I could see him more clearly, my movements instinctively quiet, as though the smallest sound might shatter whatever fragile, impossible moment this was.
His head lifted.
And even through the darkness, even with the glass between us, I felt it the second his eyes found mine once more.
He scanned me from head to toe, his eyes flitting over me rapidly, as though if he willed it hard enough, he could see every secret I hid from him, every lie I used to destroy us. That he would be able to see through all the bullshit to get to the truth.
But my truth was buried beneath years of hurt and scars. And I knew that if he saw them, if he saw the criss-cross of my back, the knife puncture on my stomach, he would want them all to pay.
But that was a fight he could never win. And so I forced my movements to be fluid. Measured. Another lie to add to the pile.
His eyes came back to mine, seemingly satisfied with what he saw, and then everything stilled.
The world outside this room ceased to exist, the weight of it pressing in on me until I could barely breathe, until it was just him and me and the years that stretched between us, heavy and suffocating and impossible to ignore.
For a second—just a second—it felt like nothing had changed.
Like we were back there again, younger, untouched, standing on opposite sides of a line we hadn’t yet crossed.
Like I could still reach him.
Like he could still reach me.
My throat tightened painfully at the thought. Because really, that was the biggest, most dangerous lie of all.
Those days were long gone. We could never go back to what we were. What we had. It was impossible, and always would be.
We couldn’t risk ever trying to salvage something from the ruins. Not when being seen together like this would sign his death warrant. Not when I had already sacrificed everything once to keep him alive.
I forced myself to breathe, to think past the pull of him, past the memories and the longing and the weakness threatening to drag me under.
This wasn’t about what I wanted. It never had been, and I had been delusional to think we could have everything.
This was about what he needed, whether or not he understood why he needed it.
My gaze held his for a moment longer, just long enough to feel the full weight of it, just long enough for it to hurt.
Then, slowly, deliberately, I pushed myself upright.
Every movement felt heavier than it should have, like I was fighting against something inside myself with every inch I gained. My body protested, pain flaring across my back as I shifted, but I welcomed it, clung to it, used it to ground myself in something real.
Something that reminded me why this had to happen.
He didn’t move.
Not when I stepped closer. Not even when I closed the distance between us from my side, stopping just short of the window, close enough now that I could see him clearly, every line of his face, every crack in the control he was so clearly losing.
My chest tightened painfully.
He looked like he was breaking.
And for one reckless, devastating moment, I wanted to reach for him.
Before I could stop myself, my hand reached up, softly pressing against the glass, resting on top of his.
He unclenched his fist, and I leant forward and placed my forehead against his, the thin sheet of glass the only barrier between us, and for a moment, that’s how we stayed.
How I wanted this moment to last forever.
But it couldn’t, and I couldn’t continue doing this to him. I couldn’t keep selfishly giving him enough crumbs of myself to keep him around.
But I couldn’t.
I wouldn’t.
Because loving him had never been about holding on.
It had always been about letting go.
My hand lifted, betraying the moment, betraying him, hovering just inches from the glass. My fingers trembling as they curled slightly, as if they could still remember what it felt like to touch him.
His breath hit the glass again, heavier this time, his hand shifting, pressing more firmly against it, like he was trying to get closer, like the barrier between us was something he could break if he just tried hard enough.
My heart shattered quietly in my chest.
He didn’t understand.
He still didn’t understand.
And that was my fault.
I had let him believe in something that could never survive this world.
I had let him believe in me.
A fresh wave of tears blurred my vision, but I didn’t let them fall, blinking them back as I forced myself to do the one thing I had always been able to do, no matter how much it cost me.
The one thing that had kept him alive.
I stepped back.
The movement was small, but it felt like tearing something vital out of my chest.
His expression shifted instantly, something dark and desperate flickering across his face as the distance widened, even by that insignificant amount.
And that almost broke me.
Almost.
But almost wasn’t enough.
It never had been.
I turned away before I could change my mind, before I could give in to the pull of him, before I could undo everything I had fought so hard to protect.
Each step toward the curtain felt heavier than the last, my body screaming at me to stop, to turn back, to choose something different this time.
I didn’t.
I reached for the curtain tie with shaking hands, my fingers fumbling slightly as they closed around the cord.
For a second, I hesitated. Just long enough to feel him there, to feel the weight of his presence pressing in on me even without looking, to feel the fragile thread that still connected us stretching to its limit.
Then I pulled.
The curtains slid down between us, cutting him off completely, the final barrier falling into place with a soft, quiet sound that echoed far louder in my chest than it should have.
I stood there for a moment, drowning in the silence, my hand still wrapped around the cord, my breathing uneven, my heart aching in a way that felt far too familiar.
Then, slowly, I let go.
And just like that, he was gone.