Page 140 of The Ache That Stayed

I could hear something in my chest shatter into a million pieces.

My fingers twitched. I wanted to reach for him, to take it back, to undo what I’d just done. I wanted to stop him. I wanted—

But I didn’t move. Because if I did—I wouldn’t survive it. I wouldn’t stop.

And if he had touched me again—just once—I would have taken it all back. But he just stood there, bleeding quietly, giving me the one thing I’d asked for. Even if it destroyed him.

And somewhere between trying to save him, fighting him, and pushing him away just to fall apart in his arms, I’d forgotten one terrifying truth. No one asks the person they don’t love to stay. No one breaks their own heart trying to send them away.

Because the truth was, I had feelings for him too. I’d fallen too. And that was the cruellest part of all.

CHAPTER 37

Roxanne

Iwoke up feeling heavy in a way that didn’t belong to exhaustion. My body felt wrong. My throat burned, my chest felt tight, and there was a lingering pressure behind my ribs like a stone had settled there overnight, unmoving, suffocating.

Everything hurt. And then it came back. The way I had pushed him away. The way his expression had changed—how he had gone completely still, like I had shattered him. A look closer to defeat.

I squeezed my eyes shut as tears threatened to slip free.

I wasn’t doing this. Not now. Not when a far worse nightmare awaited me.

Darius.

The name alone was enough to change everything. The ache in my chest didn’t disappear. It just changed shape—twisting colder. An older wound I recognised.

Fear.

My phone sat on the bedside table, silent. I stared at it for a long moment before reaching for it, my fingers slower than they should have been. I looked over the message again, like it would’ve changed overnight, inevitable—like death foreshadowing in the distance.

The location. The time. And a simple see you soon message.

My stomach twisted violently. I didn’t want to see him. Not after what he had done. Not after everything he had turned me into.

But I didn’t have a choice. People like him didn’t let go. They didn’t forget. They waited. And I had walked straight back into his reach.

The drive passed in silence. No music, no distraction—just the steady hum of the engine and the weight of everything I wasn’t allowing myself to think about. I didn’t let my mind go to Santino, didn’t let it linger on the way things had ended, because if I did, I knew exactly what would happen. Because if I thought about the look on his face when he walked away—I wasn’t sure I’d have the strength to walk into this. And I had to.

The warehouse appeared sooner than I expected, sitting at the edge of nothing, isolated in a way that made it feel detached from the rest of the world. It looked abandoned and forgotten—an old brick structure, weather-worn with damp and neglect. Moss clung to the lower walls, creeping into the cracks, and the windows were either boarded up or shattered, leaving dark, hollow openings.

I parked a little further away than necessary and stayed there for a moment, my hands resting on the steering wheel, my pulse steady in a way that felt unnatural.

This was it. No turning back. No one to intervene. No one to help, if I needed it.

I unlocked my phone and hovered over Marcello’s name before I could stop myself. He hadn’t called back. Marcello never didn’t call back. Unless something mattered more. Or things had already gone awry. I swallowed the bile rising in my throat.

For a second, I thought about calling him again—telling him everything, letting him hear it from me before someone else twisted it into something uglier. I didn’t. I couldn’t.

Instead, I typed. Stopped. Erased. Typed again.

I stared at it longer than I should have. Then, before I could think too much—

My thumb hovered. Then pressed send.

My screen stayed lit. My thumb hovered again before I could stop it.

His name.