Chapter 75

The city was quiet, wrapped in a humid darkness that clung to the windows. The kind of night that pressed down like a secret, heavy and unspoken.

Elena sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the packed suitcase half-hidden behind the curtain. She could see its outline in the dim light, the promise of escape just a few feet away.

Tomorrow. She would go tomorrow.

Her mind whispered it like a prayer. Her heart didn’t believe her.

Behind her, the sound of the shower stopped. A moment later, Adrian’s voice carried through the half-open bathroom door.

“Elena?”

“Yeah.” Her voice sounded too small.

He stepped out, towel slung around his waist, droplets of water tracing the muscles of his chest. The sight of him still made something inside her ache — not with desire this time, but with grief.

Grief for what she thought he was. For what she had wanted him to be.

He smiled faintly, sensing her gaze. “You look like you’re a million miles away.”

“Just tired.”

He crossed the room and sat beside her, his hand brushing against hers. “Then sleep. You need rest.”

“I don’t think I can.”

He tilted his head, studying her face with that unsettling precision she used to find magnetic. “You’ve been restless all week. What’s going on in that beautiful head?”

Her throat tightened. Tell him you’re leaving. Tell him now.

But she couldn’t.

Instead, she whispered, “I’m scared.”

His expression softened instantly. “Of what?”

“Everything,” she said. “The news. The looks people give us. The way the world feels… wrong.”

He reached for her, his voice low and soothing. “Then stop looking at the world. Look at me.”

When his hand touched her cheek, she flinched before she could stop herself. It was small, but he noticed.

His eyes darkened. “Do you think I’d hurt you?”

She swallowed. “No.”

“Say it.”

“You wouldn’t hurt me.”

The words tasted like ash.

He leaned in, kissing her slowly, deliberately — not passion, not tenderness, but something in between. Something claiming.

When he pulled back, his voice trembled. “You’ve been distant, Elena. I feel it. Every time you pull away, it’s like losing air.”

She wanted to tell him you already lost me. But instead, she said, “I don’t want to fight.”

He smiled — a sad, tired smile. “Then don’t.”

He stood, letting the towel fall to the floor, and reached for her hand. “Come here.”

Her body moved before her mind could protest. He drew her up, into his arms, into his warmth.

“I don’t want to lose you,” he murmured against her hair.

“You won’t,” she lied.

They ended up in bed again — not with the urgency of passion, but the slow inevitability of something that had been circling them for weeks.

It began softly. His fingers traced the lines of her collarbone, his lips finding the curve of her throat. She felt herself unravel, not from desire but from exhaustion — the exhaustion of resisting, of doubting, of living in fear.

Every part of her wanted to pull away. Every part of her also remembered what it was like when this had felt like love.

He whispered her name as if it were an apology. “Elena…”

And she let him kiss her. Let him touch her. Let herself forget, just for a moment, who he might be.

Because tonight wasn’t about love. It was about goodbye.

She closed her eyes and tried to memorize the way his hands moved, the way his breath hitched, the way he whispered things that once made her melt.

If this is the last time, she thought, then let me be the one who decides it.

But even that felt like a lie. He always decided. He always had.

When he rolled over her, his eyes found hers in the half-dark. “Do you still love me?”

Her lips parted, but no sound came out.

He waited.

“Yes,” she whispered finally. The word trembled out of her like something broken.

He smiled — relief, satisfaction, something darker. “Then nothing else matters.”

She nodded weakly, because he wanted her to. Because it was easier than truth.

He kissed her again, deeper this time, until her thoughts blurred. Until her fear quieted under the weight of his touch.

And for a while, she let herself disappear.

Afterward, they lay tangled in silence. The only sound was the distant hum of the city below and the soft tick of the clock on the nightstand.

Adrian’s arm was heavy across her waist. His breathing slow, steady.

She stared at the ceiling, feeling the weight of him like a chain.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured suddenly.

Her heart stopped. “For what?”

“For making you doubt me. For the things you’ve heard. For the way I make you afraid.”

Her chest tightened. So he knows.

She turned to face him. His expression was open, almost childlike. “I just want us back,” he said softly. “The way we were. Before all this.”

“You can’t undo what’s been done,” she whispered.

He reached up, cupping her cheek. “Maybe not. But I can try.”

She wanted to cry. To scream. To tell him he didn’t get to try after everything. But instead, she said nothing.

“Promise me something,” he whispered.

“What?”

“That no matter what happens, you’ll remember this. Right now. Me. You. Like this.”

Her breath hitched. “Why would you say that?”

“Because I feel like the world’s trying to take you from me,” he said quietly. “And I can’t let it.”

She froze. His words were soft — but beneath them, the threat pulsed like a second heartbeat.

He kissed her again, and this time she didn’t respond. He pulled back slightly, searching her face. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she said. “I’m just… tired.”

He smiled faintly. “Then rest. I’ll keep watch.”

When he turned off the lamp, she lay in the dark, wide awake. Every time he shifted beside her, she tensed. Every exhale he gave sounded like a countdown.

Hours passed like that — her pretending to sleep, him holding her too tightly, like she might vanish if he loosened his grip.

And in a way, she already had.

Sometime after midnight, when his breathing deepened, she slipped free from his arm and sat up. The moonlight spilled across his face, pale and perfect.

He looked peaceful in sleep — younger, almost innocent.

She wondered if that’s how his victims had seen him, too.

Her gaze drifted to the dresser, where his phone lay charging. She thought about grabbing it. About scrolling through his messages, his photos. Maybe there’d be proof this time — something undeniable.

But she couldn’t. She couldn’t risk waking him.

Instead, she stood quietly, staring down at him one last time.

“I loved you,” she whispered. “God help me, I did.”

He stirred slightly, murmuring her name, as if even his dreams refused to let her go.

Elena stepped back, clutching her robe tighter around her.

She walked to the window, opened it just enough to feel the cool night air on her skin, and tried to remember what freedom smelled like.

When she turned back, the room seemed smaller somehow. The bed a trap. The air too heavy.

Tomorrow. She would leave tomorrow.

But as she crawled back beside him, forcing her body to relax under his touch, one thought echoed louder than the rest:

If he knows I’m leaving, tomorrow might never come.

She didn’t sleep that night. Not really.

Just lay there, her eyes open in the dark, listening to the rhythm of his breath — the lullaby of a man she no longer trusted, of a love that had turned into a cage.

When dawn finally came, it painted the room in cold light, and she realized something quietly devastating.

There had been no love left between them that night. Only need.

Only fear disguised as closeness.

And yet, as his arms tightened around her once more, she let herself pretend — just long enough to make it through the morning — that she still belonged there.

That this was what love was meant to feel like.

That it wasn’t already too late.