Page 192 of Ruin My Life

“Be safe,mijo,” Rebecka tells him, her voice steady despite the glassiness in her eyes. “And come back and visit me. I don’t want to wait another year to see you again.”

“I will,Mamá,” he answers, his voice low and thick with something I recognize too well—grief disguised as patience.

She pulls him into a tight hug and holds on just a little too long, like she doesn’t fully trust herself to let go.

When she finally turns to me, I already feel my throat begin to close.

She reaches out her hand. “I expect you to come back too, sweetie.”

I step forward and let her fingers wrap around mine—warm, gentle, anchoring.

“I’d like that,” I admit softly.

And I mean it. Rebecka is the kind of motherly presence I haven’t felt in so long—soft around the edges but sharp in all the right ways. Her love doesn’t demand anything. It just exists. Easy. Effortless. Like breathing.

I didn’t expect to feel safe here. But I did.

And some part of me doesn’t want to let it go.

The snow crunches beneath our boots as we step out into the cold morning air. Damon hauls our bags into the trunk of the car, every movement practiced and precise. Like he’s done it too many times before.

But when he slides into the driver’s seat and glances over at me, the smile he offers doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

He’s hurting too.

I don’t say anything—I don’t need to.

Because I understand what it means to ache for the impossible—to long for a family you can’t reach, even when they’re still alive.

Damon has his mother. She’s right here. But his world is wrapped in barbed wire. Coming home always costs him something.

And even if he could walk away from it all—The King’s Eye, the Songbirds, the entire system he built to protect others—he knows staying would only put her in the crosshairs of someone else’s gun.

To love someone enough to let them go…

I used to think that only existed in melancholic fairytales.

Now I know better.

Now I know it’s real.

I rest my head against the cold glass of the window as we pull away from the house, the road winding through snow-laced trees that seem to whisperstay.

But we can’t.

This place was a pause, not a destination. A breath held between storms.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what comes next.

Xander is dead. That was supposed to be my ending. The closure. The revenge fantasy fulfilled. But it didn’t fix anything. It didn’t stitch the scar back over my heart or fill the empty place where Amie used to live. It didn’t quiet the nightmares or ease the guilt.

It just cracked open a door I didn’t expect—one that pulled Damon and his closest into the crossfire.

One that made me wonder what the hell I’m really doing.

There’s still the second man from that night—the green-eyed one. But it’s like chasing smoke through a hurricane. No name. No trace. No whisper of a lead in six months. For all I know, he’s vanished. Changed his name. Died.

And even if I did find him…