Page 74 of Savage Obsession

“You didn’t.” My voice cracks. “But it could have been different.”

His hands tighten around mine. “I’m not going to let anyone touch you again.”

Tears burn behind my eyes. “You can’t promise that.”

“Yes, I can,” he says fiercely. “I’ve already proven it.”

I lean into him, my head resting against his chest as his arms wrap tightly around me. His heartbeat thunders beneath my ear. His lips brush the top of my head, and I feel the steady rise and fall of his breath.

“I’ve got you,” he whispers. “Always.”

Aithan

The drive back from the hospital is silent. The kind of silence that isn’t empty—but full. Heavy.

Yelena sits beside me in the car, her posture relaxed, but I can see through the calm she’s trying to project. She’s exhausted. The bruises along her wrists and neck are faint now, but they’re there—ugly reminders of Lazaro’s hands on her.

The doctor assured us that nothing is broken, that her wounds will heal. He didn’t say a damn thing about the ones I can’t see.

She almost died. Again.

My grip tightens on the steering wheel as I pull up to the penthouse.

I should have killed Lazaro slower.

The brutal execution of Lazaro and Basilis has already rippled through the underworld. Word spreads fast. The message is clear: I am not my father. I don’t give second chances. I don’t grant mercy. You betray me, and you die.

I feel Yelena’s eyes on me as I park the car, but I don’t look at her. Not yet.

When we step inside, the scent of her—something soft, something sweet—hits me first. The penthouse is the same, but I am different.

Colder. More ruthless.

I carry her into the bedroom, but she asks for a moment to herself. Everything inside me screams to stay with her, but the look on her face tells me it is best I let her have this moment. She obviously has never taken a life before and she will need time to process that. I know this was exactly how I felt the first time I took a life. It’s always easier knowing they deserved it, and in her case it was kill or be killed.

The penthouse is dark except for the dim glow of city lights spilling in through the massive floor-to-ceiling windows. I stand there, drink in hand, staring at the skyline like it holds answers I’ll never find.

Yelena is asleep in our bed—our bed. But the weight in my chest keeps me from joining her. We had both taken a long cleansing bath earlier, and I had talked her into going to bed without me. Her bruised body needed to rest.

I swirl the amber liquid in my glass, watching the slow movement, the way it clings to the sides before settling again. A lot like me. I can go through the motions, pretend I’ve got it together, but the second I stop moving? The past drags me back.

I should feel victorious. Lazaro is dead. Basilis too. The council knows I’m not a man to cross.

But I don’t feel victorious. I feel empty.

Because none of it changes what I lost.

What we lost.

My jaw tightens, and I down the rest of the whiskey, but it does nothing to dull the ache inside me.

I don’t know how to sit with this kind of grief. I don’t know how to be the man Yelena needs. I’m too ruthless. Too damaged. Too much of a monster.

And she deserves better. So much better.

I rub a hand over my face, exhaling slowly. The thought has been gnawing at me for days—should I let her go?

Would it be the right thing?

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