I lean deeper into him, letting this fragile peace fill my chest, my bones, my soul. I don’t say it out loud, but the words press urgently inside me, a fierce prayer to whatever gods might listen:
Don’t let the world come. Please…not yet.
***
I jolt upright like I’ve been shot.
No sound. No warning. Just the brutal slam of panic crashing into my chest, ribs cracking under the weight of it. My heart’s a war drum. My lungs refuse air. I claw at the sheets like I can rip the feeling out of me, but it won’t go.
The air in the penthouse is wrong. Cold. Sterile. A blade dragged across skin that doesn’t bleed fast enough. I stumble out of Kane’s bed, feet barely registering the floor before I’m moving, fast, frantic, hunted. Not by him.
By me.
I’m on my knees, heart slamming violently inside my chest, the sleek marble floor biting into my skin as I desperately search the shadows for a glint of metal. I can barely breathe, barely see beyond the tears blurring my vision, but I know I have to find that damn ring.
Preston’s ring.
The ring I threw off days ago, the ring that felt suffocating, a polished leash wrapped around my finger. But now I’m clawing for it, desperate and wild, because suddenly it feels like the only thing tethering me back to the life I understand.
A life of control. A life of expectations. A life carefully scripted, where the future is clear, predictable, and safe.
Not this. Not him.
Because Kane Rivera is chaos. He’s uncertainty. He’s passion and ruin and intensity so terrifying it threatens to burn down every carefully built wall I’ve ever hidden behind.
I gasp harshly, panic scraping painfully through my throat as I scramble along the floor, frantic fingers trembling, searching, praying for that tiny scrap of metal to somehow erase the last seventy-eight hours I’ve spent believing his truths.
It defies logic, this panic, this sudden desperation to undo it all. But my heart is too close to breaking through my ribs, my body shaking too violently to see reason. Because the idea of risking everything I’ve been trained to uphold, my family’s name, my reputation, my carefully curated future, for a man who could tear me apart just as quickly as he rebuilt me, is impossible.
I’m a coward. I’m running. And I know it. God, I fucking know it.
But if I don’t sabotage this now, if I don’t rip myself away while I still have the strength, I’ll never survive the fall if he lets me go. If he realizes how broken, how fucking terrified I really am.
Because if I’m honest with myself, if I look too closely at the ragged edges of my heart, I’m only seconds away from falling hopelessly in love with Kane Rivera.
If I haven’t already.
“Camille?”His voice slices through the darkness, rough with sleep, confusion, and a raw edge of something I can’t bear to name. It stops me cold, freezing me like a trapped animal, heart slamming violently against my ribs.
I don’t look up. I can’t. If I see his face now, if I glimpse the betrayal flickering in his eyes, eyes that burned worship into my skin mere hours ago, I’ll break. I’ll shatter completely, and I’ll never put myself back together again.
Instead, I dig blindly through the shadows, fingertips scraping desperately across the cold floor. My chest tightens, lungs burning, panic clawing its way up my throat, thick and suffocating. I need that ring. I need the lie it represents, the safe, sterile future I’ve promised myself. If I find it, maybe, justmaybe, I can convince myself that the devastating lie I’m about to tell is real.
“Camille.”
My name again. Deeper now. Rougher. His voice cracks through the quiet, closer, edged with suspicion and a deadly tension that coils around my bones. I hear him shift, feel the weight of his stare searing through the dark. My breath stalls, muscles trembling violently beneath his scrutiny.
“Camille, what the fuck are you doing?”
The question hits me like a slap, slicing deep, shredding every fragile thread of composure I’ve desperately woven around myself. My fingers suddenly close around cold metal, hard, sharp enough to slice skin. Preston’s ring. Relief floods me, but it’s acidic, bitter, mingling with the shame that already burns like fire.
Slowly, painstakingly, I force myself upright, fingers trembling around the diamond that feels heavier than lead. I turn toward Kane, the movement excruciating, heart hammering like a trapped animal inside my chest.
He stands at the edge of the room, bathed in pale, cruel moonlight. It highlights every ruthless edge of him, his chest bare, tattoos winding darkly across taut muscle, shadows kissing every brutal, beautiful line of his face. His jaw tightens eyes narrowed into dangerous slits as he takes me in. Silent. Waiting. Like a storm building toward an inevitable, violent explosion.
God, he’s beautiful like this, lethal and raw. It breaks my heart all over again.
“I’m going back,” I whisper hoarsely, forcing each word from my throat like shards of broken glass. “I’m going home.”
