Page 9 of Raziel

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I had to cage what I felt. Strangle it.

Bury the impulse so deep it couldn’t breathe.

Because wanting her wasn’t a quiet thing.

It was a compulsion.

A fucking madness.

And I couldn’t afford to go mad.

So I swallowed it down.

Maybe I could if I’d stop lying to myself for five minutes.

Or let go of a promise I knew damn well my mother wouldn’t have wanted me to keep I could have her.

I don’t believe my mother would’ve wanted me unhappy.

She wouldn’t have wanted me bound to someone I didn’t love—because of a childhood pact sealed by grief and guilt.

But still—

I had promised. And she wasn’t here to tell me I didn’t have to keep it.

So I did.

Out of duty.

Out of fear.

Even though every time Maya looked at me, I felt myself slipping further from the man I was raised to be—and closer to the man I really was.

And that man wanted Maya.

Wanted her messy, loud, wild, stubborn-ass self.

Something about her felt too familiar to ever want to let go.

I wondered what she was doing in that moment.

If she was thinking about me.

If she was giving another man the attention she gave me.

Touching him like she did me.

Teasing him like she did me.

I knew that if I ever saw her like that with someone else,

I’d put him in the ground.

And I’d make sure she watched.

Let her try to move on.

I’d be waiting on the other side—

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