Page 27 of Inevitable Endings
Ada watches me, waiting for the rest.
“I tried to forget about him. To pretend it never happened. But when I started investigating later on… that’s when I found out who he really was.” I wet my lips, my voice barely above a whisper. “That’s when I found out he was the head of the Bratva.”
I meet Ada’s gaze, and something unspoken passes between us.
“And we both witnessed it,” I finish. “Everything he’s done. Everything he is. You saw it too, on the news. All while curiosity got the best of me.”
Silence stretches between us, heavy and unyielding. Then, finally, Ada squeezes my hand.
“You’re not the same person you were back then,” she says quietly.
I don’t answer. Because the truth is, I don’t know if that’sentirely true.
Ada’s grip tightens around my hand. “I remember the news flashes,” she says, her voice quiet but steady. “The Bratva asserting dominance in New York. The bloodbaths. The bodies turning up in the streets like warnings.” She exhales sharply. “Everyone in the city was terrified. And rightfully so.”
She turns her head to look at me, searching my face for something. “But you weren’t, Isabella.”
I let out a breath, my chest suddenly feeling too tight.
Ada shakes her head, her voice laced with something close to disbelief. “Why did you ever start that investigation on your own? Why did you even want to stick your nose again into businesses like that?” A pause. “His businesses? Even though you knew damn well this man was horribly dangerous.”
I swallow, staring down at the bowl of soup in my lap. The steam curls in soft tendrils, but I don’t feel its warmth anymore. My hands are cold. My whole body is.
“I don’t know,” I murmur. But that’s not the truth. Not really.
I let out a hollow laugh, shaking my head. “I spent so much time pretending it didn’t matter. Pretending I didn’t wonder why he let me go, why he didn’t kill me when he had the chance.” My fingers curl tighter around the blanket, knuckles white.
“But the truth is, I felt it that night. A fear so raw it burned through me, set every nerve on edge. The kind of fear that tells you to run, to survive, to never look back.” I swallow hard, my throat tight. “But somewhere beneath that terror… I felt something else too. I felt something different than pain in a long while.”
I drag in a breath, my voice barely above a whisper. “I felt an emptiness I knew too well. An absence. A hollow space inside me that had been there for as long as I could remember.” I close my eyes, exhaling slowly. “And for some reason, when I looked at him, it was like he carried the same kind of emptiness. Like Iwasn’t the only one who felt it, I resonated with it.”
Ada doesn’t say anything, but I can feel her watching me, waiting.
I wet my lips, trying to find the right words for something I still barely understand. “It made me curious. And more than that… I felt drawn to him. Like something deep inside me recognized something deep inside him.” I shake my head, exhaling sharply. “It didn’t make sense. It still doesn’t. But it was there—that pull. That terrible, undeniable pull.”
I glance at Ada, my voice quieter now. “And maybe that’s why I couldn’t let it go. Why I had to know who he really was. Because some part of me, as much as I hated it, as much as I feared it… wanted to.”
“You’re out of your damn mind,” she mutters. But there’s no real bite to her words.
A small, tired smile tugs at my lips. “I know.”
She studies me for a moment longer before sighing. “You’re lucky to be alive.”
I nod. “Believe me, I know that too.”
Ada watches me carefully, her fingers still resting against mine. “And were you right?” she asks.
I don’t answer right away. Because the truth is, I don’t want to say it out loud. I don’t want to admit that after everything, after all the pain and all the destruction—
I was right.
A few silent tears slip down my cheeks before I even realize I’m crying. I don’t wipe them away.
“I was right,” I whisper, my voice hoarse. “More than right.”
I take a shaky breath, my throat tightening. “It took a while. A long while. And a lot of pain. But when he finally let me see the truth, when he let his mask slip, I saw it.” I swallow hard. “That emptiness. That hollow, aching void inside of him.”
Ada doesn’t interrupt. She just listens.
