Chapter 16
Ghost
Her heart stopped. Her fucking heart stopped. For less than a minute, but that’s a minute too long.
The second the doctor said those words, the world tilted. I almost blacked out. Everything inside me twisted so hard I thought my ribs snapped through my flesh.
She jumped. Off the Green Road bridge. Not even fifteen fucking minutes after I sent her away. I was throwing punches at Bones while she was out there dying.
Dying.
Fuck.
They’re transferring her to the ICU now. Said they’ll let me see her after.
After.
I almost lost it right then and there. Told the doctor if he didn’t take me to her immediately, I’d burn the hospital to the fucking ground. Bones stepped in, got between us. Saved that man’s life. Maybe mine too.
Fuck, Bones. When I told the staff I was her husband, he looked at me like I’d just torn his goddamn heart out and stomped on it. Like he was about to have a stroke right then and there. I’m not explaining it to him. Not now, when I can barely fucking breathe.
So I sit here. Slumped in a chair. Elbows on my knees. Head hanging. Heart clawing at my throat with bloody nails.
The brothers who followed me here? Silent. Spread around the waiting room, eyes locked on nothing, probably trying to make sense of this madness.
“What the hell are you doing here, biker boy? One of your minions kiss the road?” A woman’s voice invades the space of the room, smug and a little amused.
Ria. Temperance’s friend.
I glance up just as she walks in with that guy — Griffin, I think. The one Temperance had a thing with. Or still does. Who the fuck knows.
Bones goes rigid. His stare snaps to Griffin like he’s ready to peel the skin from his flesh. Griffin just grins, which makes it worse. I brace for the explosion, but somehow Bones reins it in. Slowly — too slowly — he turns his attention to Ria.
“No,” he grinds out, every syllable like glass in his throat. “We’re here for…” His eyes cut to me, sharp and furious. Then he bites the bullet. “Ghost’s wife.”
The word is a damn curse in his mouth. He says it as if it’s being pulled from between his teeth with a set of pliers.
Ria blinks, stunned. “You have a wife?” It comes out like a punchline. Like the concept is so absurd she needs a second to absorb it. Like she can’t believe anyone would ever marry me. At least not willingly. She wouldn’t be far from the truth.
I just nod once. Look back down.
Where the fuck is that doctor?
“We, uh…” Griffin starts, voice cautious. “We pulled a woman out of the river earlier. What does your wife look like?”
Shit.
“Thank you,” I murmur, voice hollow. “For saving her.”
Ria’s voice shoots back, thick with disbelief. “Nooooooooooo. That woman is your wife?”
I don’t answer.
I don’t move.
I don’t even breathe.
I tune her out, tune them all out, until the only sound left is the pounding of my heart. I just need the fucking doc to come sooner. I need to see her.
I’ve been sitting in this fucking chair for hours. Hunched forward. Elbows on my knees. Hands twisted together like if I squeeze hard enough, I’ll stop everything from unraveling.
She hasn’t moved. Not once.
She is too pale, her body too still, like Death hasn’t decided to take its claws out of her skin yet. Her chest rises and falls in a slow, shallow rhythm, as if the air itself is struggling to stay inside her.
I keep replaying this morning in my head, over and over. It’s like I’m seeing someone else playing a horror scene in my mind. Like it wasn’t me the one who destroyed her. Like it wasn’t her the one who accepted my fucked up final judgement.
Her feet are torn up, the skin shredded from walking barefoot. There are scratches up her thigh and bruises on her arms, her ribs, her hip. The doc said they’re from the river rocks, the fall. He mentioned them casually, not realizing that every word he spoke was a well-aimed dagger.
And I just sat there, fists clenched, listening to the list of her injuries.
I don’t know what I was hoping for. Some miracle closure? That she’d break like I wanted, and somehow I’d be fine through her destruction?
I’m a fucking idiot.
My heart is in pieces. She gave me what I asked for — her surrender, her end — and it didn’t fix anything.
It didn’t bring me peace, it just made the hole inside me deeper.
Wider. It swallowed everything good that was still there, and left me with more pain, more darkness, more of everything that hurts.
I need to find a way to get over my bullshit. To heal myself and to also heal her. Again. Because I already healed her some this past year, didn’t I? Only to fuck it all up to the heavens in minutes.
I can only wish, when she wakes up, she’ll be in a moment of clarity. That the shadows I called forth won’t be ruling her mind still.
I shattered her. Fuck, I shattered her. What right do I have to hope she’ll ever let me close a second time?
I don’t. But the hope is still there, twisting like a knife in my gut.
Her eyelids flutter. The shift is small, barely noticeable, but my body goes rigid, every nerve strung tight with anticipation.
Her eyes open — slow, heavy, like it takes effort just to lift them. But they’re open. Hazel and tired and beautiful. And I feel like I can breathe for the first time in hours.
“Adora,” I whisper. Her name slips out before I can stop it.
She turns her head, sluggish, confused. Her brows pull together like even this simple act hurts.
“Wha—” Her voice cracks, dry as dust.
I’m already up, grabbing the water. I hold the straw to her lips, and she sips slowly, weakly. Just a few drops before she leans back, like even that was too much.
I sit again, drop back into the chair and drag a hand down my face. I don’t know where to start.
“Adora…” I try again, but she cuts me off.
“Don’t.”
Her voice is flat. Lifeless.
“I want you to leave,” she whispers, still staring at the ceiling like I’m not even there. “I don’t want to hear your cutting words, Ghost.”
That name. It hits like a train. It sounds wrong, so wrong, coming from her lips. But I’m the one who told her not to call me Dominic anymore, didn’t I?
“I don’t have cutting words, Adora. Not anymore,” I murmur, sorrow hugging the sound. “Your heart stopped.” The words nearly choke me. Saying them out loud makes it too real. Too raw.
She turns her head slowly, her expression unreadable. “So?” Her voice is hoarse, a whisper made of knives. “Why do you sound like that’s a bad thing? Isn’t that what you wanted? Or are you just upset I didn’t finish the job?”
My stomach lurches.
“I’m sorry I disappointed you, Ghost. That I didn’t die well enough to give you the closure you needed. But I think we’re even now, don’t you?” Her voice is almost calm. “I paid with my life. So you can walk away knowing you got your revenge after all.”
She turns away again. The void in her eyes guts me.
“Maybe next time my mind spirals, I’ll finally finish what you started.”
“No.” The word rips from my throat. “Adora, no.”
I lean forward, voice breaking. “I wasn’t thinking. I wasn’t — fuck, I wasn’t thinking clearly back there. I acted out of rage. Blind fucking rage.”
I breathe hard, every inhale like razor wire down my throat. “I don’t want you to die,” I whisper.
Because it’s true. It’s the only truth I have left.
I deluded myself into believing I could survive her death. That I could pull that trigger and it would make things better. That the monster inside me would be satisfied.
She turns back to me and her stare slices through my skin — it’s cold, detached. Like I’m a stranger who stumbled in from the streets, mumbling madness.
“You planned it,” she says, voice low. Cold. “All of it. Meticulous. Calculated. You played the long game, Ghost. Nearly a year of pretending. Of lying. So don’t insult me now by pretending otherwise. It’s beneath you. And it’s a slap in the face to me.”
“It was supposed to end after five months,” I rasp. “ That was the plan.” I pause, throat locking up. “But I couldn’t do it then. I kept telling myself I would, eventually, but I know now I never could’ve gone through with it. Not really.”
I suck in a breath, the air scraping like broken glass. “But this morning… you called out for him. In your sleep. Like he was the love of your life. And something inside me snapped. I don’t even know what I became, I lost all control.”
My voice cracks. “I wish I hadn’t heard it. I wish I ignored it. Anything but that.”
She tilts her head a little, a dangerous gleam in her eyes. “Who did I call for?”
I close my eyes. “Bowie.”
Her laugh isn’t really a laugh. More like a scoff dipped in acid. “You’re so full of shit.” Her words are sharp enough to draw blood. “You’re not just lying to me. You’re lying to yourself, too.”
I feel her fury before I hear it.
“You say you wouldn’t have gone through with it later, but just his name was enough to send you spiraling.
And do you know why, Ghost? Because you never asked.
Not once. You never gave me a moment to speak.
You never wanted to know my side of the story.
Never showed me it was safe to tell you the truth.
You locked me inside that fantasy you built, the fake life and your fake affection, and told yourself it was the right thing to do. ”
Her voice rises, barely contained. “And I played along. Because I was too afraid to lose you. Because I wanted to keep the version of you who held me, who kissed me, who played the violin just to make me feel better. But it always felt like there was a blade hanging over my head. One word about the lie I told or my marriage to him, and you’d drop it. ”
She breathes hard, her chest rising and falling. “And you liked it that way. Don’t deny it. You investigated, dug up what you wanted, and painted a picture that made sense to you. That justified your anger and your revenge. You thought I never paid. That I just moved on like it didn’t destroy me.”
I try to speak, but she doesn’t stop.