Page 88 of The Ache That Stayed

The drive was short. I barely registered the roads, the turns, the passing lights blurring through rain-streaked glass. My mind wasn’t there. It was still in the gallery. Still stuck, in that moment. In that silence.

The motel came into view through the downpour. Small. Isolated. Flickering lights fighting against the storm. I thanked her and stepped out, the rain hitting me instantly—cold, sharp, real.

A small bar sat beside the motel.

Perfect. A bar meant noise and strangers. Somewhere to disappear for a while. And maybe a drink. Or three.

People had started crowding inside to escape the storm, damp coats and hurried voices blending together until everyone became part of the same restless blur.

Being lost in a crowd felt safer than being alone with my own head. But it didn’t wash him off me. Didn’t quiet the noise in my head. Didn’t stop the way my chest felt too tight as though anger was building again and waiting to let loose.

I wrapped my arms around myself and headed in.

Trying to steady the unease under my skin.

Too much. Everything was too much. And it wasn’t just him anymore. It was everything I had buried starting to surface.

CHAPTER 22

Santino

Chaos didn’t knock. It tore through.

And somewhere along the way, Roxanne became mine. I couldn’t pinpoint when it happened. Just that one day she was… everywhere.

In every decision. Every silence. In the things I didn’t do because of her.

And the frightening part wasn’t wanting her anymore.

It was how normal it started to feel. Like she’d rearranged my whole damn life while I wasn’t paying attention.

I told myself distance would fix it. That if I stayed away long enough, that whatever this was—would die.

It didn’t. Instead it just hollowed me out slowly and called it survival.

But the dangerous part was that obsession stops feeling insane after a while. It starts feeling logical.

I’d never been this way about anyone. Not once. Not even close. Not even when I was married. But somehow Roxanne always seeped into my mind, like she’d engraved herself somewhere deeper than thought. And I don’t think she even realised what she’d done to me.

People talk about desire like it burns hot.

They never tell you the terrifying part is when it settles into your bones and becomes part of you.

And I tried letting her go. The devil knows I tried.

But letting go of her felt like cutting away a vital organ and pretending I could survive without it. It felt wrong, which was why I’d left two years ago in the first place. Not because I didn’t feel it. Because I did. Long before I ever let myself touch her. Long before the kiss. I just never said it out loud.

Because I knew myself. And I knew exactly what I’m capable of when something becomes mine. Because the second I did, there’d be no line I wouldn’t cross to keep her.

I tried to starve out this feeling. Kill it before it destroyed her too. Instead, the bastard grew teeth. And then I kissed her, and the taste of her wrecked me worse than any blade.

And everything I’d buried came roaring back.

When she looked me in the eye, breath ragged, body flushed, calling to me—it went straight through my chest. As if she pushed the broken pieces aside and said—I see you.

All of you. Like I wasn’t broken or beyond saving. Like I wasn’t too much.

It felt like she reached into hell, pulled my soul out of the devil’s hands and marked it as her own.