TWENTY ONE

VIKTOR'S POV

I didn’t move. I couldn’t.

The door had clicked shut behind Bonnie with the force of a slamming finality. Madeleine’s sobs still echoed in my ears, despite the silence that settled in the room around me. I stared at the closed door like it was going to open again, like maybe, just maybe, she’d come back in and tell me everything was going to be okay. But it never happened. The minutes dragged by, slow and agonizing, and I remained rooted to the spot, as if I were some sort of statue, frozen by the weight of my own regrets.

I sat there on the edge of the couch, my head in my hands. The silence pressed down on me like a thousand pounds, every moment more suffocating than the last. It wasn’t the kind of silence you could ignore. It was the kind that wrapped around you and squeezed until you couldn’t breathe.

*What have I done?*

The thought kept ringing in my head, over and over. I could still see her face—pale, tear-streaked, shaking as she stood there, accusing me. And I couldn’t blame her. Everything she said was true. I *had* kidnapped her. I *had* taken advantage of her. And I didn’t know what the fuck to do with that knowledge.

I wanted to get up, to do something—anything—but I didn’t. My body wouldn’t cooperate. Every time I thought about moving, the weight of my choices pushed me back down into the cushions.

I was a fucking monster.

The thought made me sick to my stomach. I thought I had been doing the right thing, thinking I was helping her by keeping her close, thinking I could control the situation. But it wasn’t control anymore. It was fear. Fear of losing her, fear of letting her slip through my fingers. And now, I had lost her anyway, in the worst way possible.

I reached for the bottle of whiskey on the table beside me. The burn of the alcohol was nothing compared to the burning in my chest. I downed a few swallows, but it did nothing to numb the pain.

The clock on the wall ticked louder than ever, each second dragging on endlessly. Two hours passed. The minutes felt like years. Bonnie didn’t return.

I didn’t care. But I did.

I was drowning in my own self-loathing, and I couldn’t find the surface.

The thing is, I *knew* what she had said to me. I knew how much I had hurt her. But the worst part—the part I couldn’t escape—was the fact that I hadn’t cared before. I hadn’t cared what happened to her, not really. She had been a means to an end, a pawn in my game. I had used her to get what I wanted, and now she was gone. And all I could feel was the hollow, aching emptiness that had taken root inside me.

I knew I wasn’t worthy of redemption, but fuck, I wanted it. I wanted to make things right. I wanted to take back everything I had done to her. But how could I? How could I ever make amends for something like this?

The bottle of whiskey was empty now, but it didn’t help. I wasn’t numb. I wasn’t even close.

I stood up, pacing the room in circles, trying to outrun the thoughts that swirled inside my head, but they wouldn’t leave. The guilt. The shame. The regret. It was all there, suffocating me.

The door creaked open two hours later, the sound cutting through the silence like a knife. I looked up, half-expecting it to be her, maybe with one last desperate plea. But no. It was Bonnie.

His expression was unreadable. I could barely make out his face in the dim light. His eyes flicked to me before looking away, a slight tension in his shoulders.

“What do you want?” I couldn’t keep the venom out of my voice, though I had no right to be angry at him.

“Boss…” Bonnie said quietly. “She’s gone.”

I didn’t need him to elaborate. I knew. I felt it in my bones. The emptiness, the absence of her presence, settled over me like a thick fog.

“You let her go,” I muttered bitterly.

Bonnie stayed silent, his face hardening as if he were resisting the urge to say something, but I didn’t care. I didn’t want to hear it. There was no point in talking about her anymore. She was gone. And I was the one who had pushed her away.

I took a step back and collapsed into the chair again. The world around me felt distant, like I was watching it from some other place, some other life.

Bonnie didn’t speak. He just turned away, leaving me alone in the suffocating silence once more. The space between us felt vast, like an ocean I couldn’t swim across.

And as he disappeared, I was left with nothing but my own broken thoughts and the bitter sting of what I had done.