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Her eyes shine with something furious and betrayed, something that cuts deeper than any blade ever could.

"Youwere," she says bitterly. "You were the steady one. The one I didn't second-guess. You were the ground under my feet when everything else was burning—and you let me lean on you while you lied."

Her words crack something open inside me. A wound I know I'll never stitch closed again.

"You made me believe I could trust you," she whispers, voice splintering. "And now... now I don't know if I can trust anything."

"I know," I breathe against her skin. "But I swear to you, Seanna... I was yours long before you ever knew."

Another trembling breath leaves her, shaky and uneven.

Her eyes close for a second, her whole body folding in on itself like she’s trying to hold together the broken pieces.

I just stand there, breathing with her, feeling the crack in the world we built between us.

God, if I could take it back. If I could undo every lie stitched into the seams of us.

But I can't.

And somehow, she's still standing.

She pulls back a little more, steel finding its way back into her spine.

"I need a fucking shower," she mutters, voice rough, brittle around the edges.

I smile softly, brushing my knuckle along the lace at her hip. "Want some help?"

She scoffs, fire sparking back to life in her gaze. "Get the fuck out, Matteo. I know damn well if you step into that shower, I'm getting railed against the glass."

I chuckle low, dark, and wrecked, backing away with my hands raised in mock surrender. But fuck, the image carves itself into my skull like a brand I'll never scrape off.

"Would that really be so bad?" I throw back, voice rasping with promise.

She flips me off, and it’s the most beautiful fucking thing I’ve ever seen.

I move to the door, pausing just outside it to rake one last hungry look down her body—memorizing the rage, the heartbreak, the goddamnfirethat makes her who she is.

"We will be waiting in the living room, little storm," I promise, voice thick with everything I can't say. "Don’t be long."

She slams the door in my face.

And for a long moment, I stand there, leaning against it. Breathing her in.

And knowing—knowing with a hollow, aching certainty—that I will never want anything the way I want her.

Even if it costs me everything.

Chapter 43

Seanna

Thewaterscaldsmyskin, but I don’t turn it down.

I brace my palms against the cool marble of the shower wall, letting the punishing heat burn away the aftershocks still coiled in my body—the soreness, the betrayal, the desperate ache I can’t seem to scrub clean.

It doesn't work.

It never does.