Page 53 of Fired at the Heart

I let his words wash over me, trying to separate the truth from the seduction. Trying to remember that this is the same man who chose his family’s respectable facade over our partnership. The same man who left me to handle our rivals alone.

“The manor is empty without you.” Raphael’s forehead presses harder against mine. “I’ve kept our suite the same as you left it. Your books. Your clothes. The paintings you chose. It’s all waiting for you.”

A wave of nostalgia hits me, a longing for our cozy suite with the garden view from our bedroom, and the privacy of the east wing where we could be ourselves.

“Let’s start fresh,” he murmurs into my ear. “No more separate lives. I’ve convinced Aaiden and the others that we need your expertise. They’re prepared to welcome you into the family business.”

And there it is. The reason this will never work. I refuse to change who I am and abandon my chosen family to live a fake life where I watch Raphael wither away doing a job he hates. The hope that had sparked back to life dies, leaving me cold again.

He brushes a strand of hair from my forehead. “We’ll be so good. Just like we always were.”

His words paint a seductive picture, but it’s a lie. It won’t be like we always were. It will be a half-life, watered down year after year until I forget who I am and turn into nothing but pretty arm candy. The perfect little Omega warming Raphael’s bed.

My heart squeezes hard, trying to collapse in on itself. In another life, in another version of this story, I might have said yes. Might have taken his hand and walked out of this warehouse toward a future where we healed our wounds together.

But that future doesn’t exist.

“Raphael.” I raise a hand to memorize the warmth of his skin beneath my fingertips one last time.

His eyes shine with victory, with love. He thinks he’s won. That he will get everything he wants and give up nothing in return.

A surprised grunt breaks the silence, followed by the dull thud of a body hitting concrete. The sound echoes through the warehouse, shattering the moment between us.

Raphael tenses, his head whipping toward the sound, to where Ezra was standing guard.

The single second of distraction I’ve been waiting for.

My fingers slide to my sleeve, finding the hidden syringe. In a practiced, fluid motion, I drive the needle into the side of Raphael’s neck and depress the plunger, sending the transparent liquid into his veins.

The entire process takes less than two seconds.

Raphael’s body jerks away from mine, one hand flying to his neck where the needle has already retracted, leaving only a tiny red dot behind. He stares at me, confusion bleeding into comprehension, then horror.

“What did you—” He staggers backward a step, hand still pressed to his neck. “What did you do?”

The syringe drops from my fingers, clattering to the concrete. “I’m freeing myself. From you. From us. From everything we were.”

Raphael’s expression contort with disbelief, betrayal etching itself into features I once traced with loving fingertips. He tries to step toward me, but his legs buckle. The drug works quickly. In another thirty seconds, his diaphragm will begin to paralyze. Sixty seconds after that, his heart will stop.

“Avery.” My name sounds wrong on his lips now, strangled and desperate. “Why?”

“Because you forgot who I was when you abandoned me,” I tell him, my lips numb. “I was never going to thrive in your pretend world, and I deserve more than the half-hearted love you offered.”

He reaches for me as he crashes to his side, hands grasping at the air. His hazel eyes lock onto mine with a desperation that tightens my chest.

The drug continues to take effect, Raphael’s breathing growing labored, each inhalation a struggle as his muscles refuse to obey his commands. His hand splays on the floor, still trying to reach me, to keep his focus on mine.

Inside me, something screams, clawing at the walls I’ve built, demanding I rush to him, to hold him, to stop this from happening. It wants me to cradle his head in my lap, to apologize, to accept his offer and return to Rockford Manor as if the last five years never happened.

But I lock the urge away, bury it beneath layers of remembered pain. The nights I spent curled around his pillow after he left. The whispers that an Omega couldn’t run our operation alone. The threats, the challenges, the blood I spilled to prove myself. The betrayal that hollowed me out and left me sleepwalking through my own life.

“You left me.” I dig my fingers into my thighs to hang on. “Now I’m leaving you.”

Raphael falls onto his back, his body trembling with involuntary spasms, but his gaze never leaves me. His lips move, forming words without sound, and I force myself not to read them. I don’t want to know his final thoughts. Don’t want them haunting me more than they already will.

Lena steps forward with a mask of professional detachment. She kneels beside Raphael’s shuddering form, pressing two fingers to the pulse point in his neck.

She doesn’t need to. I can see the drug working and chart its progress through his system. This moment will live in my nightmares for the rest of my life.

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