ELENA

People say heartbreak is quiet.

They’re wrong.

Heartbreak is loud. It screams in your veins.

It shakes your bones.

It turns every breath into a punishment.

Especially when it comes from the man you swore you were finally done loving.

The door of the Volkov private office slams shut behind me as I walk in — Matteo’s voice echoing from the call I just overheard, replaying like a curse in my head:

“You did what you had to. She’ll hate you, but she’ll live.”

And Luca’s reply — the one that broke me:

“If she hates me, she won’t look back. That’s the point.”

My heart didn’t break cleanly.

It tore.

Jagged, violent.

He looks up the second I enter — sleeves rolled up, tie loose, jaw shadowed by exhaustion. He’s beautiful in a way that shouldn’t still matter.

“Elena?” He rises. “You weren’t supposed to—”

“Overhear it?” My voice is ice. “No. I wasn’t.”

A muscle in his jaw jumps — barely. “Let me explain.”

“Explain?” I laugh — humorless, cold. “That you made a deal behind my back? With my brother? To keep me away from the case? From the danger?”

His eyes change — not fear, not guilt. Pain.

“Elena—”

“Don’t,” I cut him off. “You don’t get to make choices for me. Not anymore. Not ever.”

He steps toward me.

I step back.

It’s automatic, instinctive — and it hurts him more than any slap could.

“Elena,” he says again, voice cracking at the edges now, “I never wanted to hurt you.”

“But you did.”

My voice trembles now. I hate it.

“You think I don’t know that?” he rasps. “You think I didn’t break every second I planned it? You think I wanted to—”

“You think hurting me is protection.”

Silence. Heavy. Damning.

“It keeps you alive,” he whispers.

“And it kills me.”

His eyes close like the words physically hit him.

For a second — one tiny second — I almost break.

Almost run into his arms.

Almost tell him that there’s no universe where I don’t choose him.

But that was the girl I used to be.

Now I choose myself.

“Thank you for proving something,” I say quietly.

“What?” He sounds destroyed.

“That I was right to stop loving you.”

He flinches — actually flinches — like I put a knife straight through him.

His hand reaches for me — instinct — but he freezes halfway, fingers curling in midair like he’s holding himself together by bone and will.

“Elena… don’t go.”

I swallow a sob so hard it feels like blood.

“Goodbye, Luca.”

I walk past him.

He doesn’t stop me.

He doesn’t touch me.

He doesn’t beg.

He lets me leave.

Because he thinks that’s love.

I don’t look back.

Not when I reach the elevator.

Not when the doors close.

Not when my knees give out the second I’m alone.

I choke back a scream as Manhattan lights blur outside the descending glass.

This time… he didn’t walk away.

I did.

And somehow, it hurts worse.

LUCA

The office door is still swinging when my phone slips from my hand and hits the floor.

I don’t pick it up.

I don’t sit.

I don’t breathe.

Adrian’s voice echoes in my head from earlier:

“You can’t save her by losing her.”

But it’s too late.

She’s gone.

And for the first time in my life,

I don’t want to be the man who survives everything.

I want to be the man she stayed for.

But I’m not.

Not anymore.