Chapter 24
It's here, the letter from Lorenzo that never reached me 3 years ago.
My hands tremble as I hold the slightly wrinkled envelope, the edges yellowed with time. My name is written in his handwriting firm, slanted, and painfully familiar.
Ruhi.
I trace the letters with my thumb, the weight of everything pressing down on my chest. Three years of silence, heartbreak, confusion and it all comes down to this.
Taking a deep breath, I tear it open.
The paper inside smells faintly of him that mix of sandalwood and smoke that once clung to every shirt he owned. I unfold it slowly, my heart beating so loud it drowns out the quiet of the night.
My Ruhi,
If you’re reading this, then it means I couldn’t tell you goodbye the way I wanted to.
And God, how I wanted to.
By the time you wake up tomorrow, I’ll be gone. Not because I want to, but because I have to.
Something happened something I can’t explain now. My grandfather’s life is in danger, and I need to protect what little family I have left.
But know this, Ruhi if I could choose between power and you, I’d choose you every damn time.
You are my peace in a life full of chaos.
You are the calm I never thought I’d deserve.
Please don’t think I left because I stopped loving you.
I’m leaving because I love you too much to drag you into the world I come from a world of blood and loyalty, where love is a weakness and hearts are currency.
Wait for me if you can.
But if you can’t… live.
Be happy. Smile for me sometimes, even if it hurts.
Because no matter where I am, no matter how much time passes
I’ll still be yours.
Always.
– Lorenzo
By the time I reach the last word, the paper is wet with tears I didn’t realize had fallen. My chest feels too tight, my throat burns.
He did love me. He didn’t abandon me.
All this time, I cursed him..All this time, I hated him for something that wasn’t his fault.
I press the letter to my chest, sobs shaking through me until I can’t tell where the pain ends and the relief begins.
Leo pads over quietly, curling up beside me, resting his head on my lap like he knows. Like he feels it too.
“I was wrong, Leo,” I whisper, voice breaking. “He never left me… not really.”
The night outside is silent, but my heart feels louder than ever aching, raw, alive.
And for the first time in three years, I let myself cry for the man I never stopped loving.
The words on the letter blurred with each tear that slid down my cheek. Three years ago. He wrote this three years ago. Every line felt like a wound reopening, every word carrying the weight of the love I thought I’d lost… the love I believed had abandoned me.
He never left me. He tried to reach me. And Kartik… he kept this from me.
I didn’t know when my sobs turned into quiet, trembling rage. My hands shook as I picked up my phone, my vision hazy from tears. His name was right there Kartik.
The one person I trusted when I had nothing left. The one who watched me break, every single day, while holding on to the truth that could’ve changed everything.
Without a second thought, I blocked him everywhere.WhatsApp. Calls. Instagram. Messages.
One by one, until his name disappeared from every corner of my phone… and my life.
He didn’t deserve to explain.
He didn’t deserve forgiveness.
How could he look into my eyes all those years, knowing Lorenzo had reached out?
Knowing there was a letter filled with everything I was aching to hear?
I stared down at the crumpled paper in my hand, Lorenzo’s familiar scrawl fading beneath smudges of my tears.
The morning light crept through the curtains, but it felt dim, heavy like even the sun didn’t dare to touch the mess inside me. My eyes burned, swollen from crying all night. Lorenzo’s letter lay on the table, edges damp, words etched permanently into my mind.
A sudden knock at the door broke the silence.
Firm. Familiar. Unmistakable.
My chest tightened.
It was him.
I wiped my face, my heart thundering painfully as I opened the door. Lorenzo stood there eyes tired, jaw tense, as if he hadn’t slept either. His voice came out low, rough.
“Ruhi, we need to talk.”
Before he could say another word, my hand met his cheek in a sharp, trembling slap. The sound cracked through the quiet morning.
He didn’t move. Didn’t even flinch. Just stood there, his eyes locked on mine shocked, but calm.
“You knew,” I whispered, voice breaking. “You knew you gave that letter to Kartik three years ago, and you didn’t tell me?”
His lips parted, a muscle twitching in his jaw.
“I thought—”
“Don’t,” I snapped, stepping back, tears burning again. “Don’t say you thought I got it. You had all this time, Lorenzo! All these years I hated you, all these nights I cried thinking you left me and you never tried again?”
He took a slow breath, guilt flickering across his face. “I did, Ruhi. I tried. I left the letter with him because I didn’t want to cause more trouble for you after I—”
“After you disappeared?” I cut him off, voice rising. “After you broke me?”
He didn’t defend himself. He just took a step closer. Then another. And before I could stop him, his hands were on my shoulders, pulling me into him.
I hit his chest weakly, my sobs muffled against his shirt. “You don’t get to hug me after this… you don’t get to act like it’s okay.”
“I know,” he murmured, voice rough against my hair. “I know, baby. But I couldn’t stay away anymore.”
His arms tightened, desperate like he was scared I’d disappear if he let go. My body trembled, torn between anger and the ache I’d buried for too long.
He pressed his lips to my temple, whispering,
“I’m sorry, Ruhi. For the letter. For leaving. For everything.”
And even though I wanted to push him away, my heart betrayed me because feeling his heartbeat against mine felt like breathing after drowning.
His apology hung between us, fragile and heavy like the silence before a storm.
I wanted to hate him. God, I wanted to.
But standing there, wrapped in the warmth of the man I’d mourned for three years, I felt my anger start to blur into something dangerously familiar.
My palms rested weakly against his chest, right where his heart hammered beneath my touch. The same rhythm I used to fall asleep to.
The same heartbeat I thought I’d never hear again.
“Don’t,” I whispered, shaking my head. “Don’t do this, Lorenzo. Don’t make it harder than it already is.”
He didn’t answer.
Instead, his hand came up, brushing a tear from my cheek with his thumb slow, gentle, like he was scared I’d vanish if he touched me too roughly.
“Ruhi…” he said my name like a prayer, low and reverent, his voice breaking at the edges. “You have no idea how much I missed you.”
And before I could pull back, before I could remind myself of every reason to stay angry, his lips were on mine.
It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t sweet.
It was desperate years of pain, love, regret, and longing colliding in one breathless, shattering kiss.
My fists balled against his shirt, ready to push him away, but instead they clung tighter, like my heart had betrayed my mind completely.
The world outside disappeared the noise, the ache, the lost years.
All I could taste was him.
The warmth of his mouth. The tremor in his hands.
The way he kissed me like he’d been starving for this moment for me.
When he finally pulled back, his forehead rested against mine, both of us breathing hard.
His voice came out rough, barely a whisper.
“I shouldn’t have kissed you.”
“Then why did you?” I asked, my voice trembling, tears glistening again.
His lips curved in a broken, aching smile.
“Because three years without you was hell. And I needed to make sure you were real.”
The silence stretched, heavy with everything unsaid.
I wanted to scream at him. To hold him. To tell him I still loved him and hated him in the same breath.
Instead, I whispered the only truth I had left.
“You still hurt me, Lorenzo.”
“I know,” he breathed, his hand still cradling my face. “And I’ll spend the rest of my life making it right.”
And in that moment, with his forehead pressed to mine, I realized no matter how much I wanted to hate him…
my heart was already his.
It always had been.
His hand slowly wrapped around my waist as his lips found my neck sucking softly making his mark
His touch burned not like fire, but like memory.
Every place his lips brushed left behind a thousand ghosts of the past. My breath hitched, my fingers tightening around his shirt as his mouth trailed lower, slow and unhurried, like he was relearning me every inch, every shiver, every sigh.
“Lorenzo…” I whispered, half warning, half plea.
He stilled for a moment, his lips still pressed against my skin. “Tell me to stop,” he murmured, his voice rough with restraint. “And I will.”
But I didn’t.
Because in that moment, I didn’t want him to.
Three years of longing, of sleepless nights, of pain that never really faded all of it collided into this one fragile breath between us. His lips moved up again, brushing the corner of my jaw, my cheek, until his forehead rested against mine once more.
His breath was uneven. “You have no idea how much I missed this. Missed you.”
My eyes fluttered shut as a tear slipped down, tracing the same path his lips had moments ago. “You don’t get to miss me after vanishing, Lorenzo,” I whispered, voice breaking. “You don’t get to come back and pretend nothing happened.”
He exhaled, shaky. “I’m not pretending, Ruhi. I’m fighting… for what I lost. For what I ruined.”
I looked up at him then, really looked at the dark circles under his eyes, the stubble shadowing his jaw, the exhaustion carved into every line of his face. He wasn’t the same man who left me. He was harder, quieter… lonelier.
And maybe that was what hurt the most that even after everything, I still wanted to heal the parts of him that weren’t mine to fix anymore.
“Don’t,” I said softly, taking a step back. “Don’t make me fall all over again when I barely learned how to stand without you.”
His hand fell from my waist slowly, reluctantly. “I never stopped loving you, Ruhi.”
“I know,” I whispered. “That’s what makes it worse.”
For a long moment, neither of us spoke. The sound of our breathing filled the space heavy, uneven, real.
Then, without another word, I turned away, clutching the letter still on the table. The one that started it all.
Behind me, I heard him sigh that low, broken sound that once shattered me. “I’ll wait,” he said quietly. “As long as it takes.”
And before I could stop myself, I whispered not loud enough for him to hear
You already have.
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