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She didn’t scream at me or cry or fall apart. She just looked at me. And somehow that was worse.
Because in that look, I saw every question she never got to ask. Every promise I broke. Every touch I left on her skin that she still hadn’t washed off.
She’d wanted me once. Or maybe she just loved the idea of being seen. And fuck me—I wanted to be the man who deserved that. But I wasn’t. I’m not.
I’m a Fed. A liar. A weapon pointed at monsters that sometimes forgets he’s not one of them.
I let her believe in something soft while the walls were rigged with cameras. I let her think I could save her, then disappeared like a coward.
And now she has to live in a world where I exist again. That’s on me.
I light a cigarette with hands that won’t stop shaking. The smoke burns. But it’s the only thing that feels real right now.
12
MAXINE - TWO MONTHS AGO
The Gatti estate is beautiful.
It’s the first thing people say when they see it. Manicured lawns, marble staircases, security systems so advanced they could track a ghost through fog. Everything polished. Everything quiet.
But even a palace is a prison when you didn’t choose to stay. And I didn’t.
I woke up every morning in silk sheets that felt like a lie. Ate breakfast made by strangers who called me Miss Andrade like I was royalty, not what remained of a bad wreckage. I walked the gardens like I was part of the landscape—an ornament meant to be seen but never really touched.
And Brando?
He watched me like I might dissolve if he blinked.
I know he loves me. I know. This isn’t about love. It’s about drowning.
Because he’s always there. Always asking if I’m okay, if I’ve eaten, if I slept. There are guards outside every door. Cameras that track my movements like I’m one step away fromdisappearing again. I can’t leave without an escort. Can’t breathe without someone hovering.
He doesn’t mean to smother me. But he is. And I’m suffocating in luxury.
I try not to think about the past. I really do. I fold it up neatly in my mind like a sweater you only take out in winter—useless in the warmth, but always there, waiting. But it doesn’t stay folded. Not when I walk past the mirror and still don’t recognize the girl staring back at me. Not when I flinch at sudden noises and still sleep with the lights on. Not when I remember him. The man with green eyes and a badge and a fake name.
Saxon.
Devon.
Whatever the fuck his name is.
He saw me. And then he left. And I ended up at the Gatti estate—trapped in a gilded cage, with Brando breathing down my neck and every version of me screaming to get out.
And then one morning, Brando and I got into a fight.
Brando’s voice was too sharp in halls that were too quiet.
“Where are you going?” He snapped.
He said it like I’d committed treason.
I turn, keys in hand, sunglasses perched on my head.
“Out,” I say simply.
“With who?”