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For a brief second, his gaze softens, like he’s going to say something. Something that will pull me back from the edge. But instead, he turns away.

I can’t stop the flood of tears, my chest heaving with the weight of everything he won’t say.

“I hate you!” I scream, my voice breaking.

Scrambling to my feet, I push him toward the door, hands pressing against his chest, but he doesn’t budge. Not even an inch.

“Get out!” My hands tremble as I shove him again. “Get out. Now!”

Finally, he starts to walk away, but his fingers catch my wrist before I can slip out of reach. His stare lingers, emotions that I can’t even begin to understand passing between us.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

I yank my arm out of his grasp, my chin trembling with rage and heartbreak. “For what it’s worth, go fuck yourself.”

A flicker of something—maybe guilt, maybe bitterness—crosses his face.

He opens his mouth, but all that escapes is a quiet, nearly pitying, “Goodbye, Dinara.”

The words are barely more than a whisper, yet they crash through me like a scream. With one final glance, he turns and walks out of the room.

Out of my life.

And in the silence that follows, as the door clicks shut behind him, all I can do is stand here, frozen, lost.

The weight of his absence presses down on me, suffocating every breath. I don’t know how long I stand here, but time doesn’t matter anymore. The only thing that does is the hollow ache in my chest—the kind that feels so deep, so relentless, that I can’t help but wonder…

How much can a heart break before it stops beating altogether?

CHAPTER28

DINARA

“How far away are you?”Natalia’s voice crackles through the phone the next day, her concern cutting through the fog of my thoughts.

My grip on the steering wheel is so tight my knuckles are white, and the tears still streak down my face, falling unchecked onto my lap. I don’t even care at this point.

“About ten minutes,” I whisper, the words thick and heavy, as if they’ve been torn from the very depths of me.

I’m trying so hard not to let it all unravel, not to collapse in on myself. Because I can’t. I won’t.

The rain taps against my windshield, the sound like a hundred tiny hammers hitting metal. I reach up to wipe my eyes again, but they keep filling faster than I can clear them.

“God, if I could, I swear I’d go kill him,” Natalia mutters.

I know her too well to think she’s entirely joking. But I know she’d never really do it.

I choke back a sob and try to force some strength into my voice. “I don’t hate him enough to want him dead. Not yet, anyway.”

I can barely breathe through the pain in my chest as I press my foot onto the gas, feeling the car jerk slightly as it speeds up. The road’s slick with rain, and the world outside is a blur of gray and black—the kind of day where everything feels suffocating.

“I don’t know, Din.” I hear her frustration and love for me in the sharpness of her words. “You need to get rid of him. He’s a fucking liability. And if you see him again, tell Konstantin. He’ll take care of it, and if he does kill him…I mean, oh well.”

“I know,” I cut in with a deep sigh. “I know. But it’s not that simple. I still care too much.”

An ache rips through me before I can stop it.

God, why is this still so hard? Why does it still hurt like the day he walked away? Why do I let him do this to me?