Chapter 43
Chapter Forty-Three
EMILIA
Bastion sat on the couch when I walked in. He didn’t look up right away, but I saw the tension.
“What happened?” He asked.
“You don’t know?”
His jaw clenched. “I know Luca didn’t come home until he was covered in blood.”
My eyes locked on him. “Is Luca okay?” The same wave of sickness ran through me. That had haunted me all day.
Bastion nodded.
I took a slow steady breath.
“I was at dinner with Alexander and the Vales,” I said, I noticed Bastion go tense. “Luca dragged me into a bathroom. I told him,” I felt the tears running, “I told him I was engaged.”
Bastion’s hands dropped from his face.
“And I told him goodbye.”
Bastion straightened slowly getting up from the couch.
“Because it’s going to kill me. When you just...” The tears ran down my face. “I can’t do this…just to be forgotten, again. With no warning.” I closed my eyes, took a deep breath .
“You two broke my heart. I wasn’t even worth a good-bye message. You just…”
My throat tightened. Bastion took a step closer and I took one step back before his hands cupped my face.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, his forehead against mine. “I’m so fucking sorry, baby.”
“No. You’re not sorry. Neither of you are.”
My arms wrapped around my ribs, holding myself together.
“I waited. For weeks. For months. I kept thinking maybe there was a reason. Maybe something had happened. I checked the hospital registries, the obituaries because it made more sense for you both to be dead than to ignore me for that long.”
“Em—“
“I kept replaying everything,” I spoke over him, “every word, every touch. Wondering which moment made me too much, too little, so easy to forget.”
Tears blurred my vision now. Suddenly the words couldn’t stop everything I’d held in for years. Three years.
“I didn’t sleep. I stopped eating. I’d get dressed for events and break down in the car because there was no text waiting for me after.
I went to therapy, Bastion. A dynasty daughter.
In therapy. Do you know what that means ?
I had to make up lies about why I was tired and why it looked like I was grieving someone who was still alive . ”
The tears fell freely now, but I didn’t wipe them.
“Because you didn’t just ghost me. You buried me. With no warning. Like none of it ever mattered.” I gulped in air, “Now I’ll be your secret until you forget me again...”
There is some pain you wouldn’t even wish on your enemy. What they did to me, that type of pain wasn’t forgivable. One minute, I’m the centre of their world, and they were mine, and then nothing. Not even the courage to say goodbye.
His thumbs froze on my jaw. I tried to turn my head. To pull back. But his hands didn’t move. So, I clenched my eyes shut, trying to block him out. I didn’t want to feel him.
“No, baby,” he said. “Don’t do that.”
His forehead pressed harder into mine, pleading now. Desperate.
“Don’t shut me out. Please, please look at me. Emilia,” he said, softer this time. “I know I don’t deserve to ask, but I’m asking anyway. Please… don’t turn it off. Don’t shut down. Not with me.”
His thumbs brushed my cheekbones, wiping my tears away.
“Please, baby…” Bastion’s voice cracked. “Don’t leave me here like this.”
I kept my eyes closed.
“Fuck…Emilia, please,” he begged, he gently kissed my forehead, “ Please. You don’t have to forgive me. You don’t even have to say a word. Just look at me. Just look. ”
His hands moved, one slipping to my neck, the other to the back of my head as if holding me there might stop the distance already between us.
“You’re killing me,” he whispered. “You think we walked away? We bled for it. I’ve been living with the sound of your silence in my head every fucking day since.”
He was trembling now.
“I’m begging you,” Bastion choked. “Don’t shut me out. I swear to you, I won’t survive it this time.”
His hands stayed on me, desperate, grounding, anchoring himself to me.
“ Baby, please. ” He said it again, quieter this time. “ Please. ”
I could feel his breath against my cheek, felt how uneven it was.
“Baby,” he whispered like it was a prayer. “ Please. Look at me.”
And then, quietly, barely audible, I broke. The tears now uncontrollable.
His thumbs brushed under my eyes again, gentle. Like he thought he could smooth away my pain. “Okay, baby,” his voice trembled, “Okay… I’ll fix this.”
His hands were everywhere now, cupping my face, stroking my cheeks, cradling the sides of my head like I might disappear if he let go.
“I’ll fix us,” he swore, as if saying it enough times might make it true. “I’ll fix everything, okay? Just…just give me the chance. Let me put us back together.”
I didn’t move. Didn’t speak. There was nothing to put together.
“Please, baby. I need to believe I can fix this.”
His forehead dropped to mine again. “I can do it. I can make it right. Just say the word and I’ll burn the world down to start again. For you. For us. ”
He was breaking in front of me, beautiful, destructive, devoted in a way that only hurt more because it came too late.
He kept stroking my cheek with trembling fingers, whispering like he was trying to convince himself.
“Okay, baby,” he murmured again, softer now. “We’re gonna be okay. I’ll make it okay. Just stay with me. Just… stay.”
The words more desperate now, and I felt it, his terrified feeling underneath his obsession. He didn’t know if I could . And it was killing him.
Which means I had to get this over for him. I opened my eyes .
And everything inside me shattered.
Tears flooded down before I could stop them, as I looked at him.
The tears on his cheeks. The way his jaw trembled trying to hold everything in. The storm behind his eyes that told me I wasn’t the only one breaking.
He saw the wreckage in mine.
“There’s my girl,” Bastion whispered, voice wrecked he pulled me in.
His arms wrapped around me tight, too tight , like he needed to feel my ribs press to his just to believe I was still real. “I’ve got you,” he kissed the top of my head, my temple, my cheek. “I’ve got you, baby.”
“I can’t do this, Bastion.” My voice cracked, “I can’t .”
He held me tighter.
“I’m going to make us right,” he promised, frantic now, stroking my face again. “You’ll see. Everything will be okay. I’ll fix it, baby, I’ll fix it .”
But I couldn’t lie. Not to him. Not to myself.
“I can’t survive you two again,” I whispered, barely able to breathe. “I can’t do it .”
“No,” he shook his head. “No, baby, don’t say that. Don’t shut me out. Don’t give up on us. Not after everything. Not when I just got you back.”
He pulled me into his lap, dragging me down to the couch and holding me like he could shield me from the pain or maybe from the truth.
His arms caged me in, one hand on the back of my neck, the other wrapped around my back, holding me still. His forehead pressed to mine.
“I’ll make it right,” he whispered again.
I smiled. Soft. Sad. I knew the moment I walked out of this penthouse, I’d never come back .
I’d make sure I never saw them again.
Bastion felt it, in the way I didn’t grip him back. My smile wasn’t made for hope, but for mourning.
“No, baby.” His voice cracked. “No, don’t do that. Don’t pull away from me. Please. Please.”
He held my face like it was glass, thumb stroking the corner of my mouth.
“I love you,” he breathed against my lips, trembling now. “I love you. ”
I closed my eyes again. And for a second, just one, then I reached for his hand. Gripped it. And tried to push him away.
“You’ll be okay,” I whispered, voice shaking. “You’ll be okay, Bastion.”
Because he had been for years. If I had never come back to Villain they wouldn’t even have remembered I existed.
“You need a future Bastion.
His grip tightened. “No..no, baby. No. This isn’t how we end.”
“I’m not your future. I’m nostalgia.” My throat tightened. “I ’m sorry. But I can’t do this again .”
“Yes, you can,” he begged, “You can. Let us in again..let me in. I’ll be better. I’ll be different. I swear to God, Emilia…just give us one more chance?—”
I cupped his face. Forced him to look at me.
“Bastion. Listen to me. ”
His breathing hitched.
“It’s over,” I said it clean enough it wouldn’t kill me. “ We’re over. We ended three years ago at the Academy. You just didn’t say it out loud.”
“No,” he shook his head, again and again. “No, don’t say that. Don’t fucking say that, Emilia?—”
“You can’t rip my heart apart again, and leave me bleeding in another man’s arms. ”
“I would never ? — ”
“You did. You already did.”
Tears blurred my vision.
“I love you,” He pulled me into him like holding tighter could stop me from slipping away. “I love you so fucking much, baby, I’ll do anything. ”
I kissed his forehead, slow and soft . Then I shifted my weight off his lap, my hands bracing against the couch to climb off him.
“No—” His arms wrapped around my waist, dragging me back to him as he collapsed to the floor, kneeling, still holding on like letting go would kill him. “No, baby, please. Don’t do this. Don’t walk away from me. I’ll fix it. I swear to God, I’ll fix everything. ”
His voice cracked.
“I’ll burn for you. I’ll bleed. I’ll never stop proving it…I swear, I’ll never stop. Just don’t go. Don’t leave me like this.”
He buried his face against my stomach, his arms locked around me so tightly it hurt, like he could keep me if he just held hard enough.
“I can’t breathe without you,” he rasped. “I can’t fucking breathe.”
And I stood there, frozen in his grip.
Tears running down my cheeks, but I didn’t touch him. Because I’d already said goodbye.
And if I touched him now, I wouldn’t leave.
“ Please, Bastion.”
But he was already shaking his head. Still on his knees, still clutching me like something sacred.
“I won’t stop. You think I can just let you go? Watch you walk into someone else’s fucking arms?”
He looked up at me, with tears and rage and love all in one storm. “No. No, baby. Where you go, we go. That’s the deal. ”
I shook my head, tears falling faster now. “You can’t do this to me.”