Page 125 of Hidden

His laugh was low and bitter, and it scraped something raw inside my chest. “Bit late for that, sweetheart.”

The word should have sounded cruel on his tongue after everything that had happened between us, after all the years and all the damage and all the things we had both done to survive. Instead, it made my eyes sting so quickly I had to look away. He noticed, of course he noticed, and just like that some of the fight seemed to leave him. He moved closer again, slower this time, and cupped the side of my face in his hand. His thumb brushed beneath my eye before anything could spill over, and the gentleness of it nearly undid me more thoroughly than any anger ever could have.

“Tell me to come with you,” he said.

My breath caught in my throat.

He held my stare, not letting me look away, not letting me hide. “Tell me to come with you right now,” he said again, more firmly this time, his voice low and intense enough to send something dangerous skittering through my chest. “Tell me to walk you back there and burn that entire fucking place to the ground on my way out.”

My heart lurched so hard it physically hurt. “Vienna…”

“No.” His hand slid to the back of my neck, not rough, not threatening, but anchoring. “Answer me.”

And God, I hated that he was asking. I hated that there was a part of me—a selfish, desperate, exhausted part of me—that wanted to say yes so badly I could barely breathe. I hated even more that I already knew I couldn’t. Because Vienna would do it. That was the terrifying truth of him. He would set the wholeworld on fire if I asked him to, and he would burn right along with it if that was the cost of getting me out.

“You’re not his,” he said, his voice roughening with every word, the emotion in it starting to bleed through no matter how hard he tried to keep it under control. “You’ve never been his. You think I won’t burn every last bastard in that clubhouse if it means you can fucking breathe again?”

My throat tightened so hard it hurt to swallow. “And you think it wouldn’t cost you everything to even fucking try?” I whispered back.

His face changed then. All the anger, all the grief, all the possessive violence and heartbreak and years of waiting seemed to sharpen into one devastating truth all at once. He leaned his forehead against mine, his eyes closing briefly as though even holding himself together for this conversation was costing him more than he wanted me to see. And when he finally spoke, his voice was barely more than a wrecked breath.

“You are my everything.”

That was the thing that broke me.

Not because I hadn’t known. I had. I had always known, even when I forced myself to look away from it. Even when I had stood there all those years ago and done what I did. Even when I had built entire walls around myself to survive the aftermath and convinced myself there was no point touching the grief because it would only drag me under. I had known. But hearing it now, hearing it like this, after everything, stripped bare and honest and so painfully certain that there was no room left to hide from it… it was unbearable.

My hands found his face without thought, my fingers trembling slightly as I held him there, as though touching him might somehow steady the ache tearing through my chest. For a long moment, neither of us said anything. We just stayed there, breathing the same air, forehead to forehead, broken and furiousand far too in love for any of this to ever end cleanly. And maybe that was why it hurt so badly when I eventually pulled away first. Because I had to. Because if I didn’t, I already knew I would never leave this room again.

Vienna’s eyes tracked every movement as I bent to gather my clothes from where they had been discarded across the floor. He didn’t stop me. Didn’t speak. Didn’t plead. Somehow, that silence hurt worse than if he had dragged me back into him and demanded I stay.

I dressed slowly, painfully aware of his gaze the entire time. A part of me wanted to tell him not to look, not because I didn’t want him to see me, but because I knew if I let myself fully register the way he was watching me now—like I was something precious and already half-lost—I would unravel completely. Another part of me wanted him to memorise every second of it, just in case this was the last time either of us got to pretend we had a choice in how this ended.

By the time I was done, I still couldn’t quite bring myself to look at him properly. I reached for the jacket last and paused the second my fingers touched the leather. Vienna noticed immediately.

“Put it back on,” he said.

My fingers tightened around the leather. “You know I can’t.”

He stood then, slow and deliberate, and crossed the room until he was in front of me again. His hand covered mine where it gripped the jacket, his touch warm and solid.

His hand slid from mine only so he could take the jacket properly and help me into it once more. He didn’t rush. Didn’t make a joke. Didn’t even attempt to disguise what the act meant. He put it on me like a vow, like a warning, like a promise neither of us was brave enough to say out loud. And when he stepped back just enough to look at me in it one final time, somethingcold and undeniable slid through me, because I knew with sudden awful clarity that I had just done something irreversible.

“I have to go,” I whispered.

Vienna held my gaze for one long, brutal second before nodding once. But there was nothing yielding in his expression. Nothing defeated. Nothing resigned. If anything, he looked more certain than ever, and when he finally spoke, his voice was quiet enough to sound almost gentle.

“Do what you need to do, Gabriella.”

A chill slid down my spine at the way he said it.

My fingers tightened around the front of his jacket. “Vienna…”

He leaned down and pressed one slow, deliberate kiss to my forehead, and when he pulled back his eyes were dark with something that made my pulse trip all over again.

“This is the last time you walk out of here and think I’m letting you go again. If you come here again, you’re staying. Even if I have to chain you to the fucking bed.”

For a second, I couldn’t breathe. But then I just nodded, because what else could I do?