Page 74 of Twisted Addiction

Not after everything.

Not after the way she laid so comfortably with him, like I’d never existed.

I needed her to see what she’d done—to hold the letter and feel the weight of what she’d broken. Maybe I wanted her to hurt. Maybe I just wanted proof that I’d once mattered enough to hurt her back.

My mother murmured something in her sleep as I rose from the chair, but I didn’t stop.

I grabbed her car keys from the desk, my heartbeat pounding in my ears, and slipped out of the room, closing the door with a soft click.

The hallway smelled of stale cigarettes and bleach, the flickering lights throwing shadows that followed me like ghosts.

The elevator was too slow, so I took the stairs, my footsteps echoing in the narrow shaft.

Every step felt like a countdown.

Outside, the night greeted me with cold rain, heavier now, blurring the city into streaks of color and grief.

The drive to the Romano estate was a fever dream.

When I reached the estate, I killed the engine and sat in the silence, listening to the tick of cooling metal.

The Romano mansion loomed beyond the wrought-iron gates, beautiful and merciless. A fortress guarded by men who’d shoot first and question later.

Sneaking in was madness.

But love had always been my favorite form of insanity.

I slipped from the car, the rain plastering my hair to my forehead, and crept toward the gates.

My heart thundered as I traced the shadows along the outer wall, the air thick with the scent of wet earth and danger.

I knew the rhythm of their patrols by heart—the blind spots, the lazy turns, the seconds between flashlights. I’d mapped them long ago, back when every trespass had been for love, not vengeance.

Now, it was just for closure.

Or maybe punishment.

I wasn’t sure which anymore.

The perimeter wall loomed before me, slick with rain, its crown of razor wire catching the moonlight like silver fangs.

I scaled it, my fingers scraping the stone, my muscles screaming from my aunt’s earlier assault.

The sedatives still dulled my limbs, but pain was the only thing keeping me focused.

I dropped into the garden, landing hard among the rosebushes. Their thorns bit into my jacket, snagging at me as though the earth itself wanted me to stay down.

The guards’ voices drifted through the storm—gruff, careless, the language of men who thought no one would dare come here.

Their flashlights sliced across the manicured hedges, pale arcs of danger in the dark. I pressed myself into the wet soil, heart pounding so violently it hurt.

Bootsteps drew closer—two of them, boots crunching over gravel. I froze, the rain trickling down my face, tasting of iron and fear.

“Heard something,” one muttered.

My pulse thrashed in my throat.

The flashlight beam swept over the hedge, close enough to bleach the color from my skin.