Chapter 14
Izzy
The door clicked shut behind me.
For a moment, I just stood there. Then I let the bag fall from my shoulder. It hit the floor with a dull thud that echoed louder than it should have in the small studio. I released a slow breath into the silence—long, shaky, exhausted in a way that felt bone-deep.
Home.
It looked exactly as I’d left it. The same crooked stack of mail on the counter. The same half-finished canvas propped against the wall. The same faint smell of cheap detergent and coffee.
Untouched. But not clean.
Nathan’s chaos still lingered in the air. Not physical mess—he wasn’t that kind of slob. It was the subtle disorder he carried with him. The way he left drawers slightly open. The way he occupied space like it belonged to him but never took responsibility for it.
I walked toward the closet before I even knew I was doing it.
The door creaked softly as I pulled it open.
The duffel bag was gone.
The one he always kept tucked in the back corner. The one I’d never looked through because I’d respected his privacy. Because I’d told myself that trust meant not snooping. Maybe because subconsciously, I hadn’t wanted to find something I couldn’t unsee.
It was gone.
Not just the bag. Everything of his. The jacket he left draped over my chair. The shoes by the door. The spare toothbrush in the bathroom.
He hadn’t just disappeared.
He’d cleaned himself out of my life.
The realization hit harder than the revelation that he was involved in drugs.
He hadn’t tried to find me. He hadn’t called. He hadn’t panicked.
He’d simply… left.
A sound escaped me—half laugh, half something closer to breaking.
I pressed my hands against the kitchen counter and bowed my head.
So this was it.
Two years, reduced to an empty closet and silence.
The heartbreak didn’t come like I expected. It didn’t feel soft or wistful. It felt humiliating. Like I’d been made a fool of and only just realized the audience had already left.
Then something inside me stirred. Not sadness, but rage. It rose hot and clean and purposeful.
I straightened, eyes burning with clarity. I moved. I tore the sheets off the bed and shoved them into a trash bag. I stripped the bathroom shelf of anything that had ever belonged to him. I wiped down surfaces like I could erase fingerprints, history, stupidity.
I scrubbed the sink until my knuckles went white. I opened drawers and slammed them shut. I gathered every stray memory and shoved it into garbage bags like it was contaminated.
“You don’t get to live here anymore,” I breathed. “You don’t get my memories.”
The anger felt better than the shame. It gave me something to hold onto.
By the time I was done, my studio looked different. Not perfect or polished. But more like what it looked like before I met Nathan.
I stood in the middle of it, chest heaving, sweat clinging to my spine. I was done being the girl who fixed broken men. I was done being useful.
I showered quickly, scrubbing at my skin like the past week—and the past two years—could be washed off. I pulled on an oversized sweatshirt and leggings and tied my hair back.
The silence settled in again. This time it felt heavier.
I was halfway across the room when I heard a metallic scrape.
My breath stalled.
Another sound. Closer. The doorknob. Someone was fumbling with it.
Every muscle in my body locked.
My heart began pounding so hard it made my ears ring.
“No,” I whispered to the empty room.
The handle rattled again. Harder.
I stumbled backward, hands shaking as I grabbed my phone.
Raze.
I hit his name without thinking.
It rang once. Twice—
The door slammed inward so violently it hit the wall with a crack that made me flinch.
Two men stood in the doorway.
Large. Rough. Faces I didn’t recognize but eyes that were already assessing me, assessing their new surroundings.
I dropped the phone. It skidded across the floor.
“Where is he?” one of them demanded.
My mouth went dry. “I don’t know—”
The slap came so fast I didn’t see it.
Pain exploded across my cheek and I stumbled sideways, almost losing my balance.
“Don’t lie,” the second man warned.
“I’m not—” My voice shook. “I don’t know where he is.”
They moved closer. Their presence swallowed the room.
“Where is the stolen product?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“You think we’re stupid? Where the fuck is he?”
Another hit. This time harder. My back hit the wall.
I tasted blood.
“Where’s the stash?” the second man pressed.
“I don’t know!” I screamed. “I swear to God, I don’t—”
One of them grabbed my sweatshirt and yanked me forward. The fabric stretched. My shoulder burned.
“Check the place,” he told the other man.
I could see the other man as he moved through the small, confined space, opening drawers and slamming cupboards. Things hit the floor.
I slid down the wall, trembling.
“Boss wants the product back tonight,” I heard one of the men say to the other.
The other looked at me with cold anger.
“She’s useless,” he spat.
Relief flooded me for half a second. Then he leaned down, close enough that I could smell cigarettes and sweat.
“We’ll be back.”
His voice was low and certain, the kind of promise that didn’t rely on volume. His breath washed over my face—stale, sour—and I fought the urge to recoil.
“And when we are,” he continued, eyes dragging slowly over me, “you better have what your boyfriend stole.”
The way he said it made it clear this wasn’t a negotiation.
They took their time leaving. One of them shouldered past the door hard enough that it slammed against the wall with a crack. The wood shuddered, bounced, and hung there half-open like a wound that refused to close.
The apartment felt exposed. Split open.
I stayed frozen for a second too long, listening for footsteps, for voices, for the sound of them lingering outside. But there was nothing.
Then my body kicked into motion.
I scrambled toward the door on unsteady legs, nearly slipping on the scattered mess across the floor. My hands shook as I grabbed the edge and hauled it shut, fumbling with the chain lock. The metal rattled against the bracket before finally catching.
I stared at it once it was in place. I don’t know why I hadn’t had it on before. Not that it would have mattered. If they wanted in, they would have come in. The chain was too flimsy to keep them out.
Silence followed. A violent, unnervingly still silence.
My knees quaked and I slid to the floor. My hands were shaking so badly I couldn’t push myself up. My cheek throbbed. My shoulder burned. My clothes hung torn at the collar.
I crawled toward my phone on the floor.
I didn’t know if—the door burst open again with a thunderous clap and I screamed.
But it wasn’t them.
Raze filled the doorway like something summoned by fear itself. His eyes took in the room in one sweep—overturned drawers, broken chair, me on the floor.
Something in his face changed.
Rage. Red-hot and unfiltered. Violence.
He crossed the room in seconds and crouched in front of me.
“Izzy?” His voice was tight.
“I—” My voice broke, and the words dissolved into pathetic, shuddering sobs.
His jaw flexed. He stood and pulled me up with him, one arm wrapping around my shoulders. I didn’t resist. I couldn’t. The strength of him felt like the only solid thing in the room.
He guided—no, lifted—me toward the door. I didn’t remember my feet touching the ground. I just remembered the night air hitting my skin and the way my body finally started shaking in earnest once we reached his car.
He opened the passenger door and bundled me inside like I was fragile.
I didn’t look back at my apartment. Not once. Because some doors don’t deserve a second glance once you know what’s been standing behind them.