VOLUME II ACT II CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN – THE BREAKUP & PIVOT (Part One)

VOLUME II ACT II CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN – THE BREAKUP & PIVOT (Part One)
VOLUME II

ACT II

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN – THE BREAKUP & PIVOT
(Part One)

The silence after Kieran’s retreat was so loud I could hear Leonard’s heartbeat. Or maybe it was mine. Either way, it was a rhythm that didn’t belong in this room anymore. The walls felt thinner, the air tighter, as if the confrontation had stolen oxygen from us both.

Leonard was still sitting where Kieran had left him, jaw locked, eyes clouded. His chest rose and fell like someone surfacing after nearly drowning. His hands were clenched at his knees, and for the first time since I met him, his beauty didn’t strike me as untouchable. He looked human. Fragile. Breakable.

And I knew I was about to break him.

“Alina…” His voice cracked on my name. Just that. No question, no demand, only a tremor that betrayed the storm inside him.

I should’ve felt something. Pity. Guilt. A flicker of remorse. But I was emptied out. Scraped clean by the performance I’d just given. Kieran had thrown his cards on the table, expecting me to fold. Instead, I turned them into weapons and slit his throat with his own lies. That left me standing here, covered in the quiet aftershock, while Leonard sat stunned across from me.

“I didn’t want you to find out like this,” he said finally, voice uneven.

I tilted my head. “But you knew I would.”

His eyes darted to me, wide, wounded, desperate. “No, I, Alina, you have to understand. I didn’t know what he’d planned. Kieran—he… he asked me to play along, and I thought it was harmless, I thought”

“You thought I wouldn’t matter enough to notice.”

The words sliced before I could soften them, but maybe I didn’t want to. My tongue was sharper now than my heart.

Leonard flinched. “That’s not fair.”

“Fair?” I gave a short laugh, sharp as glass breaking. “Do you think any of this has been fair? You, standing in front of me pretending to be yours while your best friend lurked in the shadows? You thought you could kiss me, sleep next to me, touch me, while the ghost of Kieran was still in the room. Tell me, Leonard, was it you who wanted me, or just the game you two were playing?”

He stood then, sudden and fierce, as though being seated made him too powerless. His height loomed, his presence suddenly overwhelming. But his eyes, his eyes betrayed him. They weren’t predator’s eyes. They were drowning eyes.

“I wanted you,” he said, the words torn from his throat. “Don’t you get it? At first, maybe it was his idea, but it stopped being about him the moment I looked at you. The moment you looked back.”

Something inside me twisted. Because I knew he was telling the truth. And truth was more dangerous than lies.

“Leonard…” My voice almost faltered, but I steadied it on the edge of resolve. “Wanting me isn’t enough.”

“Why not?” His hands went to his hair, raking through it like he could tear the frustration free. “I don’t care what he said, or what he wanted. I care about you. I” He cut himself off, chest heaving.

“You what?” I pressed, though I already knew.

He swallowed hard. “I love you.”

There it was. The word that always feels like a cage disguised as a gift.

For a second, I let it hang between us. I could almost taste it, warm, tender, filled with the sincerity that only Leonard could carry. But love had burned me raw once before, and I still had the scars.

I stepped closer, so close I could see the pulse fluttering at his neck. I reached up, touched his cheek. He leaned into it like a man desperate for an anchor. And then, softly, I said the truth that would shatter him.

“I don’t love you back.”

His whole body stiffened. His breath hitched. The pulse at his throat stuttered beneath my fingers.

I pulled my hand away. “And I won’t pretend I do. Not for you. Not for anyone. Not anymore.”

He shook his head, disbelief spilling into every line of his face. “No… no, you don’t mean that. You, Alina, you let me in. You chose me.”

“I never chose you,” I said. Calm. Precise. Cruel, maybe, but necessary. “I chose survival. I chose to play the game better than the men who thought they could control me. You were just… part of the board.”

His breath left him in a rush. Like I’d stabbed him without a blade.

“You don’t mean that,” he whispered.

I did. And I didn’t. The truth lived in the crack between. I had wanted him, his warmth, his laughter, the way he smiled at me in the bakery. But desire wasn’t the same as devotion. And what I’d felt for Leonard had already soured the moment I realized he belonged to Kieran’s story as much as mine.

“I have to go,” I said, stepping back, breaking the tether between us.

He reached for me, but stopped just short, his hand trembling in the air. “Don’t. Please. Don’t walk away.”

I held his gaze, steady and unflinching. “It’s better this way.”

“For who?” His voice cracked. “Because it’s not better for me.”

My throat tightened, but I swallowed the ache. “It’s better for me.”

And with that, I turned. Each step felt like peeling skin from bone, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t.

At the door, I glanced back once. Leonard stood in the center of the room, shoulders bowed, face shadowed in grief. He looked like a man who had finally learned what it meant to lose.

I shut the door.

The night air outside bit my lungs, sharp and cold. But it cleared me. It reminded me I was still alive, still moving. And though I’d left one man bleeding in silence, my mind was already tugging elsewhere. To the other presence in my orbit. The one who still hadn’t been touched, who still smiled at me in the mornings without knowing the storm I carried.

Rex.

His name came unbidden, like a whisper in the dark.

I hated myself for it, but the truth was undeniable. Even as Leonard’s heartbreak echoed behind me, my obsession had already pivoted. New fixation. New hunger.

I wasn’t done.

Not yet.