Chapter 28 #2
The impact sent white-hot agony exploding through bone and tendon and nerve. Something cracked—maybe the wall, maybe my hand breaking worse, maybe my sanity finally giving up its last foothold. Blood bloomed across bruised knuckles. My vision whited out at the edges.
I welcomed it. Grabbed the lamp next. Crystal base, imported, purchased because Belle mentioned once that she loved how light refracted through cut glass. I threw it hard enough that it shattered against the fireplace mantle. Shards rained down like violent snow.
I kicked the cabinet door. Once. Twice. The third strike tore it clean off its hinges. It clattered across the floor, skidding to rest against the overturned table.
The bookshelf stood against the far wall—floor-to-ceiling, custom-built, filled with first editions I'd collected to impress a woman who'd never wanted my money. Only my honesty. Only the parts of myself I'd never learned how to give without destroying everything around them.
I shoved it.
Hard.
The whole structure teetered. Books tumbled. Shelves groaned. Then gravity won and the entire thing crashed forward in a deafening cascade of wood and paper and broken promises.
I stood there.
Chest heaving.
Surrounded by wreckage.
Alone.
The silence roared louder than the destruction. Louder than my ragged breathing. Louder than the blood pounding in my ears.
Because she was gone.
And the house knew it.
The emptiness pressed in from all sides—suffocating, absolute, the kind of loneliness that came from having something precious and then watching it walk away because you were too broken to deserve it.
My knees buckled.
I went down hard. Palms slapping tile. Broken hand screaming. Blood dripping from my knuckles to pool on pristine white stone I'd chosen because it looked clean. Untouchable. Perfect.
Now it was stained.
Like everything I touched.
I knelt there among the ruins of furniture and control and the last shred of hope I'd allowed myself to feel. Breathing hard. Ashamed. Alone. Bleeding.
A beast with nothing left to protect but himself.
And I hated it.
God, I hated it.
I could go after her.
The thought carved through me with razor clarity. Surgical. Precise. Offering salvation and damnation in equal measure.
I could drive to the hospital. Find her in the waiting room with red-rimmed eyes and trembling hands.
Pull her into my arms and whisper lies until she believed them.
Tell her I didn't mean it. Tell her I needed her here.
Tell her the house felt wrong without her breathing in it.
Tell her anything except the truth—that letting her go was killing me.
I could demand she come back. Use that voice she responded to—the one that made her knees weak and her resolve crumble. The one that turned defiance into surrender. I'd done it before. Bent her will to mine through sheer force of wanting. Through possession disguised as protection.
I could do it again. Lock the doors. Hide the keys.
Chain her to me so tightly she'd forget what freedom tasted like.
Keep her in this house where nothing could hurt her except me.
Where loan sharks couldn't touch her and hospitals couldn't take her and death couldn't steal the only good thing I'd ever held.
Make her mine so completely she'd never leave. Never choose anything except me.
The fantasy played out in vivid detail—Belle pinned beneath me, furious and beautiful and trapped exactly where I wanted her. Where she belonged. Where the world couldn't reach her. Where I could keep her safe.
My broken hand throbbed.
Blood dripped.
The empty house breathed around me.
I stayed on the floor.
Because loving someone meant more than keeping them.
It meant letting them choose.
Even when they chose to leave.
I pulled out my phone with my good hand.
Blood smeared across the screen. My broken fingers dangled useless, throbbing in time with my pulse. I wiped the glass against my thigh and scrolled through contacts until I found Hades.
My fingers trembled as I typed:
need your trainer. fingers fucked up.
The response came instantly.
you didn't text last night. knew something was wrong. where are you?
I wiped more blood from my knuckles. Left a rust-colored streak across expensive tile.
home. come alone.
A pause. Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.
you bleeding or just brooding?
I stared at the question. At the casual concern threaded through humor. At the assumption that whatever was wrong could be fixed with ice and sarcasm.
He didn't know.
Didn't understand what I'd done.
What I'd lost.
I typed:
she's gone.
The three dots appeared immediately. Stayed there. Froze.
Then:
on my way.
I dropped the phone.
It clattered against tile. Screen cracked. I didn't pick it up.
I tilted my head back against the wall and let the silence crush me. Let it press down on my chest until breathing hurt. Until existing hurt. Until the weight of the empty house became unbearable.
Belle was gone.
By my choice.
My hand was broken.
My heart felt worse.
The house echoed with absence. Her scent lingered on my shirt. Her warmth still ghosted across my skin. Her voice played on repeat in my head—I'll come back—and I'd destroyed that promise with two words.
Don't come back.
"I should have kept you,” I whispered into the empty room. The words cracked. "God, I should have kept you."
But I didn't.
Because keeping her would have killed her. Because possession wasn't love. Because letting her go—watching her walk out that door—was the only honest thing I'd done since the moment I forced her into this house.
Because I loved her.
And I didn't know how to survive that. Didn't know how to exist in a world where loving someone meant losing them. Where protection meant release. Where the only way to keep her safe was to let her choose freedom over me.
The broken furniture surrounded me like grave markers.
The blood on my knuckles dried.
The phone stayed dark.
I stayed on the floor.
Alone.
Breathing.
Bleeding.
Loving her.
Hating myself.
Waiting for Hades to arrive and fix the only wound that didn't matter anymore.