Chapter 21 #3
Another drawer. Empty except for a watch and a folded map with red lines that made no sense.
I grabbed the folders, flipped them open one by one, scanned every page for a name, a date, anything .
But it was all meaningless. Transactions.
Business contacts. Clean and sterile and utterly useless to me.
I slammed the last one shut and stood there for a second, chest rising and falling too fast. My hand twitched around the edge of the desk, nails digging into the wood. My jaw ached from how hard I was clenching it.
“Say something,” I whispered to the empty room. “ Fucking say something.”
The silence answered me back. So I reached for the glass on his desk—the one he always poured from late at night, like it was a ritual. Still a splash of whiskey at the bottom. I stared at it. Then I hurled it across the room.
The sound of it shattering against the wall cracked through the silence like a gunshot. Pieces of glass scattered across the floor, the liquid dripping down the paint like blood.
I didn’t flinch. Didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.
Until I looked back at the desk. And saw it. A thin folder. Not tucked in a drawer. Just lying flat near the edge. Hidden by shadows until now.
I reached for it slowly. The moment I flipped it open, I knew. Cormac. His name printed at the top. Rafael’s. Below it.
And then— My eyes froze. The signature. Cormac’s handwriting. Signed and dated. A marriage contract. Arranged. Formal. Legal.
I couldn’t breathe. The air left my lungs in one sharp exhale, and I staggered back a step.
This is why he disappeared.
Not the voices. Not the USB. Not the truth. Her.
Some other girl , promised to him like a business deal. Signed. Sealed.
I didn’t care if he hadn’t signed it yet. It was there . Right in front of me. Waiting for ink. Waiting for her.
I stared at the page like it might rewrite itself, like maybe I’d misread the names, the terms, everything . But no. There it was. Cold. Binding. And everything I wasn’t.
I stood there, heart cracking so loud I could almost hear it, and then my fingers clenched the edges of the paper.
I tore it. Straight through the center. Again. And again. Until it was just pieces scattered across the floor like the glass had been.
I didn’t even realize I was crying until I tasted salt. But I didn’t let it break me. I turned on my heel, stalked out of the office, and moved through the house like a ghost with fire in her chest.
Room after room, untouched. Cold. Beautiful.
A palace full of secrets. And then I reached the garage.
Rows of cars, parked like soldiers. Sleek.
Powerful. Expensive. I walked toward the set of keys hanging by the door and took the first one my hand touched.
It didn’t matter which. Because I knew all of them were tracked.
He was always watching. Always in control. Well now, so was I. Let’s see how he liked being dragged into something for once.
I climbed into the driver’s seat, breath shallow, fingers white-knuckling the steering wheel as I shoved the key into the ignition. The engine roared to life, echoing off the walls of his garage.
The garage door started lifting as I clicked the remote, the slow, mechanical groan like nails against my skin. The second it was high enough, I slammed my foot on the gas.
The tires screeched. The car surged forward. But just as I crossed the threshold— Yuri.
He appeared right in front of me. Like a shadow pulled from nowhere.
My heart jerked, my breath catching violently as I slammed the brakes so hard my body jolted forward, seatbelt catching just in time.
The tires screamed. The hood dipped an inch from him.
“Are you fucking kidding me?!”
I yanked the gear into park and rolled down the window so fast I nearly shattered the damn switch.
“Get out of the way!”
He didn’t. He didn’t even blink. He stepped closer, hands slightly out, face tense with something between confusion and disbelief.
“What the hell are you doing, Isabella?”
His voice was rough. Controlled. But not angry. Worse—concerned.
“What I should’ve done the second I got back from Italy,” I snapped. “I know. Okay? I know everything. ”
His brow furrowed. “Know what ?”
“That you’re behind my family’s death,” I hissed, voice cracking around the edges. “That he is. That it was all of you. And now he’s just conveniently disappearing while he signs contracts to marry someone else.”
His expression froze. “What the fuck are you talking about? Rafael isn’t—he’s not engaged , Isabella.”
I laughed. A sharp, bitter sound that didn’t feel like it belonged to me. “Don’t lie to me.”
He stepped closer to the door. Too close. I slammed my foot on the gas. The tires caught, and the car jerked forward just as the gate finished opening wide enough for me to slide through. I clipped the edge—hard—metal scraping against the side of the car with a guttural scream of steel on steel.
I didn’t care. I didn’t even look back.
The rearview mirror showed Yuri shrinking behind me, his mouth moving, hand already on his phone. Good. Let him call him. Let Rafael follow . Because I was done sitting still. Done waiting for them to decide what I deserved to know.
The streets blurred past in streaks of light and shadow as I pressed harder on the gas, the speed matching the rush in my chest.
I didn’t have a destination. I didn’t need one. I just needed to run far enough, fast enough, loud enough—until Rafael had no choice but to come after me.
Let him find me. Let him explain . If he could. Because right now? I didn’t know if I’d shoot him before I even let him talk.
The city disappeared behind me. Streetlights blurred. Horns faded. The roads grew quieter, narrower—cutting through trees and stone like veins made of asphalt. The deeper I drove, the less everything felt real.
The engine growled beneath me. The speedometer kept climbing. But none of it was fast enough. My chest wouldn’t loosen. My lungs were working too hard, like breathing was something I had to fight for now.
My thoughts spun in circles. Too many images. Too many voices. Anna’s door slamming shut. The USB. That clipped Russian voice saying Romanov approves . The marriage contract. Yuri’s stunned expression. And Rafael’s silence— That damn silence.
Five days of nothing and I still knew he’d be coming for me. Because I wanted him to. Because I needed him to. Because part of me didn’t believe it until I heard it from his mouth—and another part didn’t know if I could survive if he did.
My grip on the wheel tightened as I turned off the road and onto gravel. The tires kicked up dust. The headlights stretched out over open sky. And then— The cliff.
It appeared like a mirage, jagged and raw against the black velvet of night. The moon hovered above it like it was watching me, waiting.
I slammed the brakes. The car jerked forward, then rocked to a stop. For a second, I just sat there. My hands slipped from the wheel and dropped to my lap, shaking now. My knees felt weak. My throat burned like I’d swallowed broken glass. But I reached for the door anyway.
The cold hit me instantly as I stepped out, wind slicing through my jacket like it wasn’t even there. My boots crunched on gravel as I walked toward the edge, each step heavier than the last.
I didn’t stop until the ground ended. Until there was nothing ahead of me but darkness and a long fall.
The ocean below crashed against rock with a violence that matched the way my heart was beating. I stood there, my hair whipping around my face, the gun clutched in my right hand so tightly my fingers ached. Breathe.
I couldn’t.
I couldn’t fucking breathe.
The cold air wasn’t enough. My lungs were collapsing in on themselves, my chest rising too fast, too shallow.
It was all too much. Anna. Rafael. That voice. That paper. The betrayal. The lies. The way he looked at me and made me believe I was his only truth, when I might’ve just been a loose end he never got around to tying off.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to fall. I wanted him to appear already .
The wind howled louder. My breath came faster. My vision blurred, then snapped back. My fingers twitched over the trigger even though I wasn’t pointing the gun at anything.
You don’t want to die.
No. But I didn’t want to keep breathing like this either. Like I was drowning in questions no one had the guts to answer.
I stepped closer to the edge. The gravel shifted beneath my feet, and I didn’t move back. I held the gun close to my chest, my arms folded tight around it, like it was the only thing holding me together.
He’d come. I knew he would. And when he did—I was going to get the truth. Even if I had to put this gun between his ribs to take it.
I stared into the dark like it might give me answers. But it didn’t. It never did.
The ocean below churned violently, black waves slamming against the jagged rocks like fists that didn’t know how to stop breaking things.
I was the same. Still. Tight. Trembling. And all I could think was— God, I was so stupid. So fucking stupid .
I should’ve seen it. From the beginning.
I did see it—when I first met him, when I first looked into his eyes and felt that pull.
That burn. That danger. He felt like a threat from the first breath.
And I ignored it. Because I wanted it to be something else.
Because when he looked at me, I didn’t feel invisible anymore.
When he touched me, I didn’t feel lost. I felt seen .
I felt like something sharp and powerful, like I wasn’t just a name buried beneath someone else’s blood.
And I let that feeling replace everything I ever knew about caution. I forgot what it meant to protect myself.
I dropped every suspicion I ever had about him. Let him crawl under my skin, into my head, my bed —until he became the one thing I clung to in a world that had taken everything else. And now?