Page 58 of His Ruthless Claim

"Don't."

"Since the accident." Her warm brown eyes hold mine, unflinching. "You were eight years old, Luca. Trapped in that car, unable to do anything but watch-"

My fist connects with the wall. Plaster crumbles. Blood trickles down my knuckles. I've…never done anything like that before.

I've never felt so out of control that I don't even recognize myself right now.

Probably because Skye ripped away my soul when she walked out. It belongs to her anyway.

"You think I don't see it?" Maria continues, voice gentle but firm. "The way you micromanage every detail of your life? Theway you shut down anything that threatens your control?" She gestures around the preserved room. "This isn't living, Luca. This is existing in a museum of your trauma."

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"I know you're terrified of feeling helpless again. So you built walls. Became the perfect soldier, the perfect son. Except now someone's gotten past those walls, and you're losing your mind because you can't control how she makes you feel."

The watch ticks. Thirty-eight hours, twelve minutes, thirty-three seconds since Skye left.

"She makes me weak." The words taste like ash.

"No." Maria stands, placing a hand on my arm. "She makes you human. And that scares you more than anything."

I stare at my white-knuckled grip on my mother's watch, my fingers trembling against the silver band. The same way his used to shake around a glass of whiskey.

"Get out." My voice sounds hollow, even to my own ears.

Maria doesn't move. "Luca-"

"Now."

She lingers another moment before her heels click toward the door. The sound echoes through the preserved room, through my skull, matching the relentless ticking of the watch.

My arm draws back, muscles coiling to throw the last piece of my mother across the room. To shatter it like everything else I touch. Just like someone else. Just like the way he used to throw bottles, chairs, fists.

I freeze.

The watch gleams in the dim light, its face reflecting my wild eyes. Ice blue, just like his. The same eyes that used to burn with drunken rage as he towered over me, demanding to know why I lived when she didn't.

"Fuck." The word tears from my throat.

I've become him. The manipulation. The control. The way I kept Skye trapped by any means necessary, telling myself it was for her protection. Just like he used to say the bruises were for my own good.

My fingers uncurl from the watch one by one. The metal's warm from my grip, the way it used to be warm from my mother's touch when she'd check the time during bedtime stories.

I sink into her armchair, the fabric still holding the indent of her body after all these years. The room spins, or maybe I'm the one spinning out of control. Out of the careful boxes I've built my life around.

"I'm sorry," I whisper to the empty room, to the ghost of my mother, to Skye. "I'm so fucking sorry."

But sorry doesn't fix what I've broken. Doesn't erase the fact that I'm becoming everything I swore I'd never be. A man who destroys what he loves, piece by piece, all while claiming it's for their own good.

The watch ticks on. Thirty-eight hours, twenty-seven minutes, fifteen seconds since I lost her.

28

SKYE

The sharp click of my heels echoes through the boutique as I drag another rack of designer dresses across the hardwood floor. My muscles burn from hours of reorganizing, but the physical strain helps quiet the anger still simmering beneath my skin. Every time I pause, his face flashes in my mind - that perfect mask of control, those empty blue eyes that gave nothing away even when I confronted him with the footage.

"These go in the window display," I mutter to myself, yanking a selection of silk pieces with more force than necessary. The hangers screech against the metal rail.

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