Page 51 of Ink Deep Devotion

“Take it out first. Please. It hurts, each breath.” I blink rapidly, trying to stay awake.

His lips press into a thin line.“It’s safer to leave it in. Less bleeding. I’m sorry,” his reply is so remorseful that I forgive him. Then he lifts me, and I scream from the movement.

“It’s okay. This will all be a memory. You’ll make better ones. This will feel like a distant dream. Shh, it’s okay.” Damian repeats, soothing me as I cry.

These men are so used to horror they think it’s a dream and not a nightmare.

Titan speeds, the car lurching forward. Dash sits in the third row of the SUV, watching everything Damian does. When he presses his shirt into my wound to try to slow the bleeding, Dash flinches as if he was stabbed himself.

I want Dash’s touch, but I know he’s too lost right now. Every time the discomfort pulses through me, I bite my tongue. I don’t want Dash to suffer more. I can see it clearly as sunlightwarming your face; Dash blames himself for this. It’s as if his thoughts were neon letters highlighting it to the world.

“Is my father alive? Dom…he said he was dead.”

Damian swipes the sweat from my brow.“He’s alive. Dom’s father did try to kill him, but his security team killed him. Don’t worry, Mila. Your dad survived and is on the way. Don’t worry.” He speaks gently, like a parent reading me a soothing lullaby. I close my eyes, wanting to rest with that bit of peace.

“Wake up for me, sweetheart,” Damian touches my cheek.“Keep those eyes open.”

I look at Dash. His eyes are still on the knife sticking out of my stomach. Damian sees what I see, how the knife is slowly slicing Dash into pieces. Damian leans to the right, keeping me in his arms but trying to block the knife from Dash’s view.

“I’m sorry,” Damian whispers to me as he hugs me closer. “He wants to be in my position, holding you. He wants to.” Damian’s eyes dig into mine before they soften with unspoken grief.“He just doesn’t know how.”

I nod, my eyelids feeling heavy. Moving my hand, I bring it up to the top of the seat. Dash’s eyes finally move and look at my hand. My fingers are covered in my blood, but eventually, Dash reaches up and takes my hand in his. His jaw sets firmly, like the stars in the night sky—unmoving from my perspective. The distance never changes for me, but for him, he’s light-years away, burning out slowly and growing more alone.

Something has changed. No, he didn’t break. He’s not going to give me tender love. Fear takes over him. The little pieces of his true self he used to show me dies.This is his worst fear. Losing someone else he loves. Admitting he actually loved me.

I don’t know if my broken prince will ever show his face again. He just became a ghost.

Chapter 18

Dash

Two months later.

The wind cuts across my brow, tracing the furrows of my focused face. I peer through the rifle’s scope, eyes narrowed. Every day, the space between Mila and me widens, mirroring the tectonic plates beneath the Earth. Gradually, we drift apart, no longer sharing the same ground.

Her two-week hospital stay following the stab wound changed both our lives. Hope had vanished from Mila’s view of the world; she’d given up on the fairytale, the tragic dream of changing her world and the monsters within it.

Dom could have killed her. He got so close.

That day haunts me.

It lives and thrives between each inhale I take, squeezing my lungs and making each breath a little less, becauseI am less without her.

As the school alarm blared, I spun around, running back to the building to find her. It didn’t matter that I found her inDom’s arms again. I needed her in mine so I could think clearly and know she was safe! But Dom had already whisked her away.

Then the phone call came—a stark truth.

She didn’t call me. I was no longer her savior.She called Damian.

The chase against time, testing fate’s limits, shattered my willpower, leaving me broken in a way I never envisioned.

You see, I was always a mess, and so was Mila, but we were together, scattered all over each other’s hearts and minds. Together and alive.

But then she was not within my sight, and a monster had her. I didn’t have all the shattered pieces that made me think one day, I could feel somewhat whole again. It was just me, and that was terrifying.

It was different when I watched my mother die. I knew it was coming; I hated it and denied it, but deep down, I knew. I was prepared.

Knowing Mila was facing death, not certain if it would claim her—and powerless to stop it—I never want to feel that way again.

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