Page 3 of Knotting on Heaven's Door

I exhaled, low and even.

No spiraling tonight. Not here.

Love could haunt you even in its absence. How a single melody could undo you without asking for permission.

And once it did, it never let go.

It had been raining the day he died. The kind of rain that wasn't dramatic or romantic, just dull and relentless. It soaked the streets, glazed the sidewalks, turned everything into a slick blur of gray and silver. He’d gone out for lemons—fucking lemons—because I’d forgotten them. We were making pasta together, something warm and comforting and stupidly domestic, and I’d teased him for being dramatic about garnish.

He kissed me on his way out. Quick, familiar. His hand slid over the curve of my hip like it always did, and he grinned at me like he had all the time in the world.

“I’ll be back in ten,” he said, already pulling his hoodie overhis head. “Don’t burn the garlic.”

I smiled at him. Rolled my eyes. Tossed a dishtowel at his back as he walked out the door.

Ten minutes later, I felt our bond tear.

It was like someone reached inside me with a blade and carved out a piece of my soul. No warning. No explanation. Just a flash of breathless, bone-deep agony—and then nothing.

Not even a heartbeat.

The phone rang three minutes later. The officer’s voice was calm. Too calm. Like he’d said the words so many times he forgot they were supposed to hurt.

The other driver had been texting. Just one message. Just one second of not looking. He blew past a red light and crushed Adam’s car like it was made of paper.

Instant.That’s the word they used.

Instant.

As if that made it better.

I dropped the sauté pan when the bond snapped. I remember the sound. Sharp. Metal on tile. I remember the garlic burning, the smoke curling up from the stove while I stood frozen in our kitchen, holding a wooden spoon like it could somehow hold me together.

I didn’t cry for three days. Not until the pack Alpha came to see me in person and handed me Adam’s wedding band.

Then I crumbled.

People said omegas weren’t built to survive that kind of loss. That when you lost a bonded mate, something essential inside you went with them. That the body kept breathing, but the soul didn’t.

They weren’t wrong.

But I didn’t die.

I got up. I kept going. I poured all the pain into the only thing I could build that couldn’t disappear in a blink—thiscompany. De la Vega Events became my anchor, my armor, my everything.

No one left me in the middle of a dinner service. No one vanished on their way to pick up lemons. No one kissed me goodbye and didn’t come back.

The band kept playing.

The music was soft, romantic, full of love meant for someone else’s story. Couples swayed on the dance floor. I watched them with a hollow sort of calm, the kind that came after grief had already taken what it came for.

The waiter returned like a shadow. I didn’t even look at him.

“Another, please,” I said quietly, lifting my empty glass.

He nodded and refilled it without a word. Bubbles rose like tiny promises I didn’t believe in anymore.

I took a long sip and let the song end.

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