Chapter 60 The Reckoning
Chapter 60 The Reckoning
Ivy’s POV
The silence that falls after Alexander’s confession is brutal. Like the world itself has exhaled and disappeared, leaving me standing alone in the wreckage of everything I thought I knew.
My legs shake. My hands tremble as if they’re trying to shake off the weight of his words.
Collateral damage. Her father trained him.
He killed her… but he didn’t.
How the hell am I supposed to process that? My mind’s a storm of chaos, spinning in wild circles. The man who holds my heart, the man I’ve given myself to, carries a darkness I never saw coming.
I ache for him. My body burns for him like a drug I can’t quit, even as my soul screams to run.
I’d asked for the truth. But this? This isn’t what I wanted.
I don’t want to love a killer. I don’t want to be with a man whose past bleeds in red and black.
But God, that pull between us is savage, impossible to deny.
He’s standing too close, so close I can feel the heat radiating off his skin, the raw power pulsing in his veins.
His presence is suffocating, intoxicating and I hate how much I need it.
I turn away, the ache splitting me open like a goddamn hurricane tearing through my chest.
“I don’t know what to think anymore,” I whisper, my voice cracking under the weight of everything.
“I… I need time, Alexander.”
I feel him watching me, eyes heavy and burning, like a goddamn judge passing sentence.
“You don’t need time, Ivy,” he growls low, that dark velvet voice wrapping around me like chains.
“You need me. I’m your fucking salvation. You don’t walk away from me now not after everything we’ve been through.”
Every word slams into me, twisting my insides, igniting a fire I’m desperate to douse.
I hate how much I want him.
How my body betrays me, responding to his dominance even when my heart is breaking in a million jagged pieces.
“I won’t let you go,” he adds, stepping forward, fingers clamping around my wrist like a goddamn vise.
He pulls me back toward him with a fierce urgency that sends electric shivers crawling down my spine.
(Alexander’s POV)
She’s slipping through my fingers, and it’s fucking killing me.
That look in her eyes, the hurt, the doubt, maybe even the fear, makes my blood boil. Like I’m some monster she’s starting to see beneath the surface, and she’s trying to pull away from the darkness I carry.
But I’m not about to let her go. Not now. Not ever.
I tighten my grip on her wrist just enough to remind her who owns her heart and every goddamn inch of her body. In and out.
“I know you’re scared, Ivy,” I growl, my voice thick with something dangerous, possessive.
“This whole shit is overwhelming, yeah. But you don’t need time, you need me. You need to feel that I’m not just a ghost from a fucked-up past. I’m here, and I’m real. I’m all yours.”
Her eyes flicker with pain and confusion battling with something darker underneath. Desire. Needing me, even if she won’t say it.
God, she’s mine, every inch and every damn piece.
I lean in, my lips brushing the shell of her ear—my breath hot and low.
“You don’t have to run from me, Baby Girl,” I whisper, letting my fingers trace the curve of her jaw like I’m claiming her soul.
“I’ll put every broken piece back together. I’ll make you whole again. You just gotta let me.”
Her breath hitches, a tiny, trembling sound that’s like a promise and a plea all at once.
“Show me,” she murmurs, voice soft and raw.
“Show me how you’ll fix me, Alexander.”
Fuck. I don’t need to be told twice.
To Be Continued...