Page 138 of Cruel Deception
I choke on the next words. They drag out of me like broken glass. “Come back. Just for a second. Just one fucking second. Let me see you again. Let me feel your lips on mine—even if it’s the last time. Even if it kills me. I just want to feel you again.”
I look up at her face, perfect in stone. “I miss you. I miss your voice echoing through this place. I miss your coffee mugs. Your footsteps. The smell of your skin on my pillow. I miss your silence. I miss your goddamn breath.”
Tears slide down my face. I don’t wipe them.
“I would give anything,” I rasp, “to have you beside me again. Your warmth. Your skin against mine. Your head on my chest. Your fingers in my hair. Just to wake up and find you curled beside me in bed—Christ, I wouldn’t waste it this time. I wouldn’t use my words like knives. I wouldn’t touch you like you were a possession. I’d hold you like you were mine—not because I took you, but because you chose me.”
I drop to my elbows, my body curling against the base. “Please, baby... one more chance. Just one more. Show up at my doorstep, even if it’s to scream in my face, slap me, spit on me—I don’t care. Just show up. Let me look at you. Let me say I’m sorry with my whole fucking chest.”
My voice trembles. “Tell me what I have to do. Anything. Anything to make it right.”
I press my palm flat against the cold stone. “You want blood? I’ll carve my name into my own fucking chest.”
“I’ll burn every picture of Seraphina I have left. Set fire to the house I was born in. Dig up my father’s corpse and throw it off a cliff if it makes you feel safe.”
“You want proof? I’ll tattoo your name across my goddamned throat. So I never speak another word without remembering who owns me.”
“I need you. I want you. I can’t fucking breathe without you.”
A sob breaks from my throat. “Please, come back. Please... I’m begging you, Charlotte. Forgive me. Even if it’s just enough for a single kiss. One. Kiss. That’s all I need. I’ll die with it. I swear. Just let me see you again.”
“I don’t care if it ruins me. I’m already ruined.”
I clutch the statue’s knees and press my lips to the stone. “Please, baby. Please.”
The silence is deafening.
And still—I stay kneeling. Because maybe, just maybe, somewhere, somehow... she’ll hear me.
And come home.
To me.
To the man who finally sees her.
I’m standing at the cliff’s edge.
My boots dig into wet gravel. Beneath me, the ocean rages like something mourning. Like it knows. Like it saw the moment she walked out of my life and has been howling ever since.
Dr. Ellis is tied to a chair five feet away from me—his frame trembling, eyes wide behind fogged glasses, rope knotted tightly around the arms of the seat. The other end coils beneath my boot, rigged to a rusted lever I could press with the twitch of a toe. One move. And he’s gone.
His teeth chatter, breath fogging the air. “Cassian—please—”
“She left me,” I say, not to him. To the wind. To the sky. To God, if He’s watching, though I doubt He is.
The words are carved into my knuckles. Blood still crusted in the grooves.
Dr. Ellis swallows, stiff in his chair. “Please, Cassian, let’s talk—”
“You had your chance,” I snap, voice rough. “Now I talk. You listen.”
I take a long swig from the bottle in my hand, whiskey dripping down my chin, burning all the way down.
“Three questions,” I rasp, breath fogging. “Answer them. Or we fall together.”
He nods slowly. “Ask.”
My voice breaks on the first one.
