Page 20 of Fallen Empire

But it wasn’t there.

Only him. Stubborn. Unmoving.Here.

I let out a long breath, one that felt like it scraped across my ribs on the way out. “Food,” I murmured, voice softer now. “Can you just… order us some food?”

I didn’t wait for an answer.

I turned, walked toward the building, and gave him silent permission to follow.

Because if I knew anything about Benjamin Ford, this was a battle I wasn’t going to win.

I stepped into the shower and let the warm water wash my emotions away.

It wasn’t just about getting clean. It was about silence. About pretending the heat sliding down my skin could somehow soothe the fire inside my chest. Like maybe, just maybe, if I stood still long enough, I could keep everything from spilling over.

Ben may have seen me, but I couldn’t see myself half the time.

I felt it. The latch on the box I kept buried deep in my mind… it twitched. A hairline fracture in the vault I swore I’d never open. The one that I’d packed all my fears and memories and regrets into.

And that one tear? That single godforsaken tear that slipped down my cheek?

It almost made the whole fucking dam burst.

God, and when it did…

I get it now.

I’m not a mother. But I’d once wanted to be.

Before fate taught me that the things you love most can be taken in an instant.

And that kind of love—a mother’s love for her child—wasn’t a shattered feeling I was willing to risk. Never again.

Still, I’d seen it. Felt the weight of it in the voices of women sitting two tables over at brunch. Heard it in quiet conversations on park benches or shared between sips of wine at rooftop parties. Women who carried the world on their backs with a smile that saidI’m fine,even when they weren’t.

They did it all—day after day—until one moment broke them.

And the terrifying part?

It was never the loud, dramatic snap that did it.

It was the silence. The stillness. The one second they allowed themselves to feel human. And everything they’d held inside came flooding out.

That’s what I felt like.

Like everything I’d been holding together with duct tape and willpower was slipping.

My best friend—my soulmate in every way that mattered—was fighting for her life.

And all I could do was stand still and unravel.

Because I couldn’t fix it.

I couldn’t save her.

And for someone like me, that kind of helplessness was lethal.

The water had turned cold.