Burn

Burn

“I came back for you. But I should’ve stayed dead.”

The door slammed open before I could even stop shaking.

A blur of fists. Steel on flesh. Wood shattering under weight.

Silas.

He was a storm — no warning, no mercy. He tackled Rafa so hard the bookshelf split behind them, books raining down like broken bones.

“Silas!” I shouted, scrambling to my feet.

But he didn’t hear me.

Rafa coughed blood onto the floor, eyes wide, half-dazed — still alive, but barely.

Silas landed another punch, then another. His knuckles were raw, torn. He didn’t stop. Didn’t breathe.

I ran forward and grabbed his shoulder.

“Stop!”

He didn’t.

“Silas—stop, he’s done!”

He finally turned — face covered in blood, his own and Rafa’s. Breathing like a hunted animal. His body was shaking with fury. His eyes were black fire.

“He tried to kill you,” he said, voice low, hoarse. “He almost did.”

“I know,” I whispered. “I know. But this—this isn’t the answer.”

His hand was still clenched around the knife. I placed my palm over his.

“Please.”

It was the only word I had left.

Slowly, the blade dropped. Clattered to the floor. Loud. Final.

Rafa groaned behind us, trying to sit up.

I didn’t look at him.

I couldn’t.

I turned to Silas instead — and hit him.

My palm cracked against his cheek. Hard. Sharp.

He didn’t flinch. He didn’t even blink.

“Why do you keep saving me?” I asked, voice breaking, all the weight of the last three years rising in my throat like fire. “Why do you keep pulling me out when I’m just going to drown again?”

Silas didn’t answer.

“Say something,” I begged. “Lie to me. Pretend there’s a point to all this.”

Still nothing.

“I should’ve died with her,” I whispered. “Maybe I did.”

His hand moved to my face, gently brushing a tear away with his thumb.

Then, finally—

“I came back for you,” he said. “But I should’ve stayed dead.”

The silence after that split me open.

I wanted to scream. To punch him again. To crawl inside his chest and tear the truth out with my bare hands.

Instead, I fell into him.

And for the second time in my life, I cried so hard I couldn’t breathe.

He held me.

Not tightly. Not possessively.

Like he didn’t believe he deserved to.

Like holding me was a sin he hadn’t stopped committing.

He didn’t pull away when I collapsed into him.

He didn’t tell me to stop when I gripped his shirt with trembling fists and sobbed into his chest.

He just stood there, like he could hold the whole weight of me. Like he wanted to.

Then, quietly, like it cost him something—

“Because if you die…”

His voice cracked.

“…then everything I did — the blood I spilled — meant nothing.”

My breath hitched. The words gutted me.

I looked up at him, soaked in salt and silence. His eyes weren’t hard now — they were wide, wrecked. That rare kind of open only pain could carve.

And then I kissed him.

Not soft. Not shy.

I kissed him like I needed oxygen. Like maybe if I took enough of him in, I’d stop feeling so hollow.

He kissed me back like he couldn’t help it.

Like he hadn’t tasted warmth in years.

Like his mouth remembered mine even after death.

I tugged at his shirt — rough, fast, angry at the space between us — and the buttons came undone under my fingers. He let me.

But what I saw when the fabric fell away made me still.

Scars.

Old ones. New ones.

Fresh burns near his ribs. Bullet lines on his side. A knife gash across his shoulder.

And one, over his heart — jagged, half-healed — where my name was carved in ink and ruin.

“Aria,” I whispered, my fingertips hovering just over the mark. “You… why would you…”

He didn’t look away.

“Because when I thought I’d never see you again,” he said, voice low, “I needed something to remind me I existed once.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. Everything inside me trembled.

I leaned forward and kissed the scar.

He shuddered.

Then we sank down — slowly, wordlessly — onto the mattress behind us.

No clothes came off after that. No hunger led the way.

Just two broken people, curled around each other like the world had gone too quiet. Like we were trying to fill the silence before it swallowed us whole.

His arm wrapped around my waist. My hand rested over his chest, over the place that bore my name.

We didn’t speak.

We didn’t need to.

The warmth between us wasn’t forgiveness. Or salvation.

It was something stranger. Something quieter.

Maybe it was grief, reshaped into comfort.

Maybe it was love, buried under too much ash.

But in that moment, it felt like peace.

And for the first time in a long, long time…

I slept.

And he stayed.

Awake. Still.

When I woke up, Silas was still beside me — lying on his back, eyes open, staring at the ceiling like it had answers.

I didn’t move.

I just listened.

To the wind outside the cabin.

To the silence between us.

To the way my own heart still beat, even after everything.

I should’ve hated him.

For leaving.

For surviving when my mother didn’t.

For dragging me back into a war I didn’t ask for.

But when I looked at him — shirtless, exhausted, bruised where Rafa’s punch must’ve landed, and still breathing in sync with mine — hate felt too small.

This man had loved me in silence for years.

Had disappeared so I could live.

Had killed to keep me breathing.

And now he was back, scarred and undone, staring at me like I was the last piece of peace he’d ever know.

I sat up slowly, rubbing my eyes.

He looked over.

“You didn’t run,” I said quietly.

“I thought about it,” he answered. “But you’d only follow.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “You’re right.”

He nodded. No victory in it. Just truth.

We didn’t talk about the kiss.

Or the scar on his chest.

Or the fact that my world was burning, and he’d just walked back into the fire with me.

But when I reached for his hand… he took it.

And didn’t let go.

Later that morning, we drove back to the city — through winding roads that used to feel like escape routes but now felt like countdowns.

Luna didn’t say much in the backseat. She was watching the trees, chewing her nails, lost in her own guilt.

I didn’t blame her. Not fully.

People like us? We all made desperate choices.

But I kept hearing my mother’s voice in my head.

Forgive him. Even if he can’t forgive himself.

And I realized maybe that wasn’t just about Silas.

Maybe that was about all of us.

The house was quiet when we returned — too quiet.

Which was always the loudest kind of danger.

Fiora greeted me with a pale face and shaking hands. She didn’t even glance at Silas.

“There’s something you need to see,” she whispered.

She led me to my room — to my desk.

Another envelope.

No handwriting this time. Just my name, typed.

Inside: a single photo.

Me and Silas. From last night. The kiss.

Taken from the trees behind the cabin.

I stared at it. My hands didn’t shake. My breath didn’t hitch.

I just… went cold.

“They know,” I said softly.

Silas stepped behind me. His eyes flicked over the photo.

“Navarro?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“Worse.”

VITTORIO — Third Person POV

He sat in his study, bathed in shadows, swirling amber liquor in a glass he hadn’t touched.

The fire burned steady in the hearth.

Outside, rain began to fall.

A knock.

One of his men stepped inside. Nervous. Sweating.

“She’s chosen her side,” the man said.

He held out the photograph.

Vittorio stared at it for a long moment. No change in expression. No twitch in the corner of his mouth.

Then, he smiled.

But it wasn’t warmth.

It was winter.

“Then we’ll bury them both.”

He turned to the fire and tossed the photo into the flames.

Watched it burn.

Watched the matchbox in the corner of the frame blacken to ash.