Chapter 305

Chapter 305
Tamara

“Ssh, Princess…” a voice murmured close to my ear, low and intimate, wrapped in something dark and familiar. “This was not how I expected our reunion to go.”

I stopped breathing.

Not because I chose to—but because my body forgot how.

That voice.

I knew it the way you know pain. The way you know your own name even in a crowd. It slid under my skin, seeped into my bones, waking something that had been buried and screaming for a year straight.

My hands began to shake violently as they rose, fingers clawing at his wrist. Not to push him away. Never that. Just to feel. To confirm that my mind had not finally snapped under the weight of grief.

He was real.

Too real.

His palm was warm against my mouth, rough in a way I remembered too well. Calloused. Steady. Alive. The faint scent of him—leather, smoke, something sharp and metallic—hit me all at once and my knees almost gave out beneath me.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” he continued softly, amusement brushing his tone like the edge of a blade.

Tears burned instantly, hot and violent, blurring my vision. My chest heaved against his arm as a sob tried to rip free, but he tightened his hold just enough to keep me quiet, to keep me here, trapped between terror and longing.

“H-how?” The word barely made it past my lips.

“I told you,” he said, his voice dropping, heavier now, darker, pressing into places that still hurt. “Even death will not be able to separate us.”

The moment the words left his mouth, something inside me snapped.

I wrenched myself out of his hold without thinking. My hand moved before my mind could catch up. The sound echoed sharp and loud as my palm connected with his cheek.

“How dare you?” I seethed, my breaths coming out in broken pants.

Isaiah’s head snapped to the side with the force of it. He recovered quickly, the faint smirk wiped clean from his face, replaced by something solemn, something almost… guilty.

“I deserve that,” he grunted.

A bitter, humorless laugh tore out of me. “You deserve worse, you piece of shit.” My fingers trembled as I wiped at my eyes, smearing tears across my cheeks. “How could you do this to me… again?”

My voice broke apart at the last word, the pain finally spilling over. The tears ruined my vision, made everything swim.

Isaiah took a step toward me, arms stretching out instinctively, but I stepped back just as fast. His eyes twitched. I saw the tears gathering there, unshed and raw.

“I am so sorry, malyshka,” he said, his voice shaking now. “But it had to be done.”

“What had to be done?” I shot back. “What had to be done, Isaiah?” My chest rose and fell erratically. “Me watching you get rammed by a truck? Watching your car catch fire until your body was so burnt they couldn’t even recognize you?”
My throat closed painfully.
“Or the part where I couldn’t even—” I sucked in a ragged breath, the sob clawing its way out. “I couldn’t even look at your body. Couldn’t go near it. Couldn’t say goodbye at your supposed funeral.”

I slapped his chest again. And again. Each hit weak, frantic, and desperate.

“Tell me,” I screamed through tears. “What the fuck had to be done that you left me alone? Miserable? Living every single day with the thought of your death clawing at my chest? What had to be done!”

Isaiah didn’t stop me.

He stood there and took it—every hit, every broken word, every sound of my grief—as I wailed and shook apart in front of him. Because it had been real. Too real. Worse than the first time, because this time I had seen it. I had watched him die.

Finally, when my strength gave out, he caught my hands in one of his, firm but gentle. His other arm wrapped around my waist just in time to stop me from collapsing.

He pulled me against him, slow and careful, until my forehead rested against his chest. His scent surrounded me, familiar and overwhelming, crashing into me like memory and home all at once.

I let him hold me.

Not for him.

For me.

I had dreamed of this moment for so long it had hurt to breathe without it.

“It wasn’t me, Princess,” he pleaded, his voice breaking openly now. “It wasn’t me. I’m so sorry. I am so sorry, baby.”

I closed my eyes against his chest, my body still trembling, my heart torn wide open—caught between rage, love, and the impossible truth that the man I had buried was holding me again.

“I’m going to need an explanation,” I whispered, my voice hoarse as I sniffed and gently pulled myself out of his hold.

Letting go of him felt wrong in a way that made my chest ache, but I needed space. If I stayed pressed against him any longer, I would either forgive him too quickly or fall apart completely. Maybe both.

He nodded slowly, like he understood the weight of what I was asking for. His hands came up anyway, unable to help himself, his fingers brushing my cheeks as he wiped away the tears I had failed to stop. His touch was careful, reverent, like I might disappear if he pressed too hard.

He stared at me with so much love it almost stole the air from my lungs. The kind of look that reminded me why this hurt so badly. Why it always would.

“I will,” he said quietly. “I just—”

“Mummy.”