"That's what I am to them, Red. Not a son. A possession." The truth of it burns in my throat. "A wayward heir who needs to be brought to heel."
"No." She shakes her head again, but there's less conviction now, the first terrible acceptance beginning to take root. "What if we go to the police with the files—"
"And make it worse?" I rake a hand through my hair, frustration and despair clawing at my chest. I swallow hard, tasting the bitterness of defeat. "We'll open the gates of Saint hell on everyone we care about if we do that. With the files uncracked, without knowing what he’s hiding, it's my father's word against mine. He's Theodore fucking Saint. He owns half the judges in the country.
"So we just give up?" Her voice cracks on the words. "Let him win?"
"Giving up?" My voice breaks. "Red, look at me." I cup her face in my hands, forcing her to meet my eyes. "Every day I stay here, fighting this losing battle, is another day your friends suffer. Another day their lives get torn apart because of me. Because I was selfish enough to think I could have this."
"It's not selfish to want to be free," she whispers, her hands coming up to cover mine.
"No." I press my forehead to hers, breathing her in. "But it is selfish to let others pay the price for that freedom."
A sob catches in her throat. "I can't lose you again."
The words shatter what's left of my heart. "You never lost me, Red. I lost myself. Lost everything the day I believed them over you."
She surges forward, pressing her lips to mine with desperate intensity. I taste salt on her lips—tears, though I'm not sure whose anymore. My hands tangle in her hair as I pull her closer, trying to memorize every detail of this moment, to burn it into my memory where no one can take it from me.
We stumble backward until she hits the kitchen counter. Without breaking the kiss, I lift her onto it, stepping between her thighs. Her legs wrap around my waist, pulling me closer, eliminating any space between us.
"Please," she whispers against my mouth, the word a prayer and a plea. "Just... please."
I understand without words. This isn't about passion or desire. It's about goodbye. About burning every touch, every taste, every sound into memory before the darkness claims us both.
My hands slide under her shirt, finding the soft skin I've come to know as well as my own heartbeat. She arches into my touch like a live wire, a broken sound escaping her throat—half sob, half moan. Her fingers fumble with my buttons, desperate and trembling, and I want to tell her to slow down, to make this last, but I can't. Not when our time is measured in minutes instead of forever.
"I love you," I breathe against the pulse point in her neck, feeling her life beat against my lips. "God, Red, I love you so much it's tearing me apart from the inside out."
Her only response is to pull me closer, her nails digging half-moons into my shoulders, marking me as hers in the most primal way. We move together with frantic urgency, each touch a language of its own, each kiss a promise neither of us can keep. The taste of salt mingles between our lips—her tears or mine, impossible to tell where her grief ends and mine begins.
My hands slide down to her waist, finding the hem of her pajama bottoms. She lifts her hips, helping me slide them down her legs along with her panties. The fabric pools at her feet as she kicks them away, never breaking eye contact.
With trembling hands, I shove my pants and boxers down in one fluid motion, my aching cock springing free between us. I step back between her parted thighs, the heat of her calling to me like a siren. Her eyes lock with mine as I position myself at her entrance. When I finally slide into her heat, she responds instantly, wrapping her legs back around my waist and pulling me deeper. The movement drives me forward in one desperate, claiming thrust that buries me to the hilt and steals the breath from both our lungs.
I drop my forehead to hers, our breath mingling in the space between us. For a heartbeat, we're perfectly still, joined as completely as two people can be. Her eyes lock with mine, a universe of pain and love and loss reflected in those green depths.
"Don't forget me," she whispers, her voice breaking on the last word.
The plea shatters what's left of my control. "Never," I growl, pulling back only to thrust deeper, harder. "You're branded on my soul, Red. There's no forgetting you. Not in this lifetime or the next."
We move together, a frenzied dance of give and take, of claiming and surrendering. Her nails rake down my back, her heels digging into my ass as I pound into her. Each thrust is a desperate attempt to become part of her, to leave something of myself behind that not even time or distance can erase.
"Yes," she cries, her head thrown back in ecstasy, tears still streaming down her face, catching the light like diamonds. "Harder."
I oblige, angling my hips to hit that sweet spot inside her that makes her see stars. She keens, the sound raw and primal, her walls fluttering around me. I feel my release building, coiling tighter and tighter in my gut, but I fight it back. Not yet. Not until she breaks apart in my arms one last time.
"Show me," I demand, my voice a harsh rasp I barely recognize. "Show me what I do to you. Only me. Always me."
Her eyes fly open, locking on mine with an intensity that knocks the world sideways. I see everything there—her love, her grief, her rage at the unfairness of it all. And then she's coming undone, shattering in my arms like glass thrown against stone. Her back arches, her body a perfect bow of pleasure and pain. Her mouth opens in a silent scream while her body clamps down on mine like a vice, pulling me deeper, refusing to let go.
The sensation of her spasming around me, the sight of her completely undone, pushes me over the edge I've been clinging to. I bury my face in her neck, biting down on her flesh as I empty myself inside her, marking her in the most primitive way possible. Wave after wave of pleasure crashes over me, my hips jerking beyond my control as I fill her with my seed—a part of me she'll carry even after I'm gone.
"I love you," I gasp against her skin, the words inadequate, meaningless in the face of what we're losing. "I love you, I love you, I love you."
Afterward, I gather her close, pressing kisses to her sweat-dampened skin, tasting salt and sweetness and despair. My heart is shattered, splintered into pieces too small to ever fit back together. But in this moment, I'm exactly where I'm meant to be. With her. No matter what the future holds, I'll never regret this. Never regret loving her, even if it destroys me in the end.
I ease out of her slowly, both of us wincing at the loss of connection. The air feels thick between us, charged with everything we aren't saying, heavy with the weight of goodbye. She finger-combs her tangled curls, trying to restore order to chaos, and I want to stop her hands, to tell her to leave them messy—a reminder of my hands there just moments ago. A reminder I won't have again when I'm back in my gilded cage, surrounded by everything except the one thing that matters.
