Page 63

When the knock came, it was soft—hesitant, like she was giving me an out. But there were no outs left.

I opened the door.

Iris stepped inside, and for a moment, everything else faded. The home felt warmer with her in it, the tension in my body unraveling just enough to make me think, Maybe we can have this. Maybe we can keep it.

Her smile was soft—relieved—like she had been waiting for me to let her back in. And for a split second, I wanted to believe in that. I wanted to sink into it.

But I knew better.

Because even as she moved closer, even as her presence settled around me like something safe and familiar, reality clawed at the back of my mind. This was temporary. This was borrowed time.

I leaned against the kitchen counter, arms crossed, trying to look composed while everything inside me was breaking apart. She stepped toward me, closing the space between us, her gaze searching mine.

Don’t do this. Don’t pull her deeper.

“Hey,” she murmured.

“Hey.” My voice came out rougher than I intended. “You okay?”

She nodded, but her eyes told a different story. She could sense it—the shift, the unease curling at the edges of my carefully built walls.

And that was the moment I felt it hit me all over again.

We weren’t invincible. We never had been. And no matter how much we wanted this, the world was waiting to tear us apart.

I shut it all off. Buried it. The warmth of her, the pull of her presence, the way she made me feel like there was something worth fighting for. Gone.

I had to be the man I was before her—the one who didn’t feel, who didn’t get attached. The one who kept everything and everyone at arm’s length because it was safer that way.

But my hands fucking shook as I faced her. I curled them into fists, forcing the tremor away. Do it. Cut her out before she can make this harder.

“This… whatever this is—it’s over.”

The words landed like a slap, and her face fell, eyes flashing from confusion to something raw.

“Knox… what?” Her voice cracked slightly, and fuck, I almost caved right then. Almost reached for her. Almost took it all back.

But I didn’t.

I went harder. Meaner.

“I never wanted you. Not really.” The words burned like acid in my throat, but I forced them out. “You were convenient.”

She blinked, like she was waiting for me to take it back. To tell her this was some sick joke. But I didn’t. I couldn’t.

“Fucking you was just… easy.”

Her breath hitched. I felt it in my ribs, the way the air shifted around us, charged and suffocating.

I took another step, closing the space between us, letting the darkness crawl into my voice. “You were my dad’s golden girl.” A twisted smirk pulled at my lips, one that didn’t reach my eyes. Make her believe it. Make her hate you. “Fucking you was like spitting in his face.”

The moment the words left my mouth, I felt the shift. Like gravity had reversed, pulling me into a free fall I wouldn’t recover from.

Hurt flashed in her eyes, fast and sharp, slicing into me before she could hide it. I watched it spread—shock, disbelief, then something worse.

Betrayal.

It hollowed her out right in front of me, and I had to force myself to breathe through the ache in my chest. Good. Let her walk away. Let her move on before this destroyed us both.

“I mean, do you really think I’d risk everything for a piece of ass?”

The words hit the air like a gunshot—sharp, brutal, irreversible. I watched them land, felt them sink into her like a blade. Her breath hitched, but she didn’t look away.

Fuck.

I had gone for the kill, and she still wasn’t backing down. Her eyes, glassy with unshed tears, locked onto mine, cutting through every shield I had left.

“You’re lying.”

It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t even an accusation. It was fact, and she said it with the kind of conviction that made my stomach fucking twist.

I stepped closer, invading her space like a last-ditch effort to get her to crack, to give up before I did. Before I folded under the weight of my own bullshit. But instead of breaking, she squared her shoulders and held her ground.

Goddamn her.

“I don’t love you, Iris. You were a distraction. That’s all.”

I didn’t recognize my own voice—low, rough, like something dying inside me.

Her lip trembled, and for a second, I thought I had done it—I thought I had shattered whatever was left between us. But then she blinked, and the heartbreak melted into something else.

Fire.

Pure, unfiltered rage.

“I thought you were a lot of things, Callahan,” she said, voice steady despite the tremor in her hands. She swiped at a stray tear and let out a sharp, humorless laugh. “But a coward? Didn’t expect that.”

The words knocked the air from my lungs.

Because that was it. The truth wrapped in razor wire. I was a coward, standing here pretending I could stomach watching her walk away when all I wanted to do was beg her to stay.

The space between us was suffocating, charged with everything we weren’t saying. I needed her to leave. I needed her not to push, because if she did—if she so much as whispered my name in that broken way she did when I kissed her too hard—I’d fucking lose it.

I’d tell her everything.

I flinched—barely—but she saw it.

Because she always saw me. She saw past the rough edges, the bravado, the carefully constructed armor. And that was why this hurt like hell.

Iris stood her ground, fire burning in her eyes, but I could see the cracks beneath it. See the way her hands trembled at her sides, fists clenched so tight her knuckles went white. Her voice was sharp, cutting, but fragile in a way that made my stomach twist.

“If you walk away from this, from me—you’ll regret it. But that’s on you. Not me.”

The words hit like a gut punch, harder than any hit I’d ever taken on the ice. My body screamed at me to fix this, to fucking fight for her, but I couldn’t. I had already committed to this path—to saving her the only way I knew how.

I forced my face into a mask, blank and indifferent, even as my chest caved in on itself.

“You’ll thank me one day,” I lied. The words tasted like ash in my mouth, hollow and bitter.

She shook her head—slow, deliberate—like she already knew I was full of shit. And maybe she did. Maybe she saw through me like she always did, straight to the part of me that was desperate to chase after her, to take it all back before it was too late.

But she didn’t fight.

She didn’t beg.

She just looked at me like I was nothing. Like I wasn’t worth it. And somehow, that hurt worse than if she had screamed.

She turned.

One step. Then another.

The sound of her shoes against the tile was deafening. I stood frozen, every inch of me screaming to stop her, to grab her wrist, to make her listen. But I didn’t. I let her walk away.

And when the door clicked shut behind her, it felt final.

The silence that followed was suffocating. The kind that settled deep into my bones, pressing down like a weight I couldn’t shake. My fingers curled against the edge of my desk—the same desk where I had touched her, kissed her, made her mine.

Now she was gone.

And all I could do was stare at the empty space where she had just stood, hating myself for letting her go, hating the way my heart still beat for her despite everything I had done.

And worst of all?

Hating the fact that this didn’t feel like saving her.

It felt like losing her forever.

And the second the door closed?—

I broke.

I drove my fist into the wall, the sharp crack of impact splitting through the silence like a gunshot. Pain lanced up my arm, but it was nothing compared to the fucking wreckage inside me. My breath came ragged, each inhale scraping against my ribs like I was barely holding myself together.

Because I wasn’t.

I had shattered the second she walked away.

My forehead hit the door, skin burning from the contact, but I pressed harder—like I could force myself to feel anything other than this gut-wrenching loss. My chest ached like a blade had been driven straight through it, twisting deeper with every second that passed without her here.

I saw her face every time I closed my eyes—the heartbreak, the fury, the disbelief.

The way her hands trembled even as she stood her ground, refusing to let me break her completely.

I had told myself I was protecting her. That this was the only way to keep her safe from the storm that was coming for us both.

But that was bullshit.

This wasn’t strength.

This was fucking cowardice.

A growl tore from my throat as I punched the wall again, harder this time. My knuckles split open, blood smearing against the cold surface, but I welcomed it. Anything to drown out the screaming in my head.

How could I let her go?

How could I stand there, looking into those eyes—the same eyes that had once looked at me like I was something worth believing in—and lie to her? Tell her I didn’t love her? That she was just a distraction?

I dragged a shaky hand through my hair, pacing the small space like a caged animal.

Chambers’ smirking face flashed in my mind, that smug bastard watching, waiting for his moment to strike.

He would rip her apart if he knew. Use her as leverage, destroy everything she’d worked for just to prove a fucking point.

And what had I done? I’d given him the perfect opening.

I had ripped myself out of her life before he had the chance—before my father, before the media, before anyone could decide her future for her. I convinced myself that this was the right thing. That she would hate me now, but at least she would still have her dream.

But standing here, fists bloodied, staring at the empty space where she should be, where she belonged?—

I knew I had just made the biggest mistake of my life.

I sat on the floor, back against the wall, staring at the door like if I willed it hard enough, she’d come back. But she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t.

Because I’d made sure of that.

The words I had thrown at her—vicious, deliberate, meant to wound—were still ricocheting inside my skull, each one sharper than the last. I told myself I was protecting her.

That pushing her away was the only way to keep her safe.

But sitting here, suffocating in the silence she left behind, I knew the truth.

I hadn’t done it for her. I had done it for me.

Because I was afraid. Afraid of what she made me feel. Afraid of how much she could break me if I let her in. Afraid that she would look at me one day and see exactly what my father did.

“You ruin everything you touch.”

The words curled around my throat like a noose, my father’s voice a relentless whisper in the back of my mind. I could still see the way he had looked at me—like I was a goddamn tragedy waiting to happen. And maybe I was.

Because now I had proof.

I had ruined her, too.

The space around me felt hollow, stripped of the heat she had left behind. My hands curled into fists against my knees, my knuckles still raw from the last punch I’d thrown. But it didn’t matter. No amount of bruised skin or aching bones could compare to the wreckage inside me.

I had loved her. Fuck, I still loved her. And yet, I had looked her in the eye and ripped her apart like it meant nothing. Like she was nothing.

“You were just convenient.”

The memory of her expression twisted in my gut like a blade. The way her lips had parted in shock, the way her eyes had shone with betrayal before she slammed the door behind her.

I had made her walk away. And now I had to live with it.

I exhaled shakily, dragging my hands down my face, trying to block out the echo of her voice, the way she had fought for me, even when I was too much of a coward to fight for myself.

She would move on. She had to.

Because if she didn’t, she’d drown in my fucking wreckage.