It had been four days since the incident.
Four days since the night that fractured everything I thought I knew about fear, and the man who refused to leave my side since.
The world had grown unnervingly quiet in those days — like even time was holding its breath.
The safehouse sat on the edge of the city, hidden behind steel gates and tall trees. In the mornings, sunlight spilled across the floor in soft squares. In the afternoons, silence hummed between us — delicate, brittle.
I was recovering, or something close to it. Well at least my wounds were. They were less visible now, but every sudden sound still made my pulse spike. Sometimes Kaelen would reach for a glass, and the scrape of it against the counter would make my entire system flinch.
He never reacted with frustration. Only gentleness.
Distance had become his language of love.
He still did not sleep in the bed. Every night, he took the armchair across the room, watching over me like a silent promise. It broke me in a quiet way — how carefully he loved me now.
By the fourth morning, I was standing at the window, nursing a cup of tea that had gone cold hours ago, when his phone rang.
Not the private line. The secure one.
Kaelen's hand froze mid-motion. The moment he answered, I felt the air change — heavy, electric.
"Mark," he said, low, controlled. "What have you got?"
I watched the muscles in his back tense. He didn't speak for a long beat. Then—
"Good. How many of them?"
The words dropped like a stone into my chest.
My breath hitched. "The men?"
He turned slowly, and even before he nodded, I knew. His eyes said it all — relief tangled with rage.
"Two of them," he confirmed. "Mark says the police picked them up at the border. They're in custody."
"I... I want to hear it." I croaked, my throat dry. The sound of zip ties. The concrete. The smell of oil and sweat. I felt it all surge again, visceral and close.
Kaelen saw it instantly — the way my grip whitened around the mug, the tremor in my hand.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
He set the phone on speaker and placed it on the table, but didn't look away from me.
Mark's voice came through, steady and professional. "We've got them separated. They're already talking, trying to make deals."
Kaelen's tone turned sharp. "What are they saying?'"
Mark hesitated. "Sir, you might want to—"
Kaelen cut him off, his voice hard. "How bad?"
"Actually," Mark said, lowering his voice, "with all due respect, maybe Ms. Sterling shouldn't—"
"I want to hear it, Kaelen," I said, my voice trembling but firm when I saw Kaelen reaching for his phone.
Kaelen's head turned, eyes locking on mine. "Elara—"
"No," I said. "Don't shield me from this. I need to hear it."
The muscle in his jaw worked. For a moment, I thought he might refuse. Then, reluctantly, he gave a tight nod. "Go ahead, Mark."
Mark exhaled. "They said she gave the orders personally. That the point wasn't just to scare you — it was to humiliate you. To ruin you, and to make sure, in their words, that you 'looked like you wanted it.' That no one would ever believe your side of the story. She also... wanted it all on tape."
"Enough, Mark" Kaelen's voice was with restrained fury.
The world went silent.
My fingers loosened. The mug slipped from my hand and shattered against the floor.
Kaelen was on his feet instantly — not touching me, but close enough to catch me if I fell. His breath came unevenly, barely restrained fury beneath it.
I couldn't move. The words hung in the air like poison, sinking into me, heavy and cold. For a heartbeat, I was back there again — the camera light blinking red. The laughter.
Smile for the camera, princess. Smile.
I could feel my heart pumping furiously. Something closing in on my throat. Then — as I turned to look at Kaelen, something broke.
Not me.
Something else.
The look on his face, the agony, regret, care. It replaced the camera lights.
And at that moment, the fear cracked open, and in its place, a sharp, cold clarity began to rise. I was able to breathe again, normally.
I drew in a slow breath, my voice low, deliberate. "That's what she was after."
Kaelen's eyes widened slightly. "Elara—"
"She wanted to erase me," I continued. "Not my life — but from your life. My reputation, my purity, my credibility. She wanted me to feel them all go away while still breathing."
He reached for me then, hesitantly, stopping short. "You don't have to listen to this. Not now."
I turned to face him fully. "If I don't listen, she wins."
That stopped him.
Something flickered across his face — pain, pride, and something else, deeper.
Mark's voice came again, cautious. "There's more. Bella's missing. Her team can't reach her, her phone's off, social media wiped. Her brother might have moved her out of the country."
Kaelen's focus snapped back to the phone. "Axel?"
"Yes, sir."
Kaelen's expression hardened, a storm gathering. "Continue looking for her. Discreetly."
He ended the call before Mark could respond.
The silence after felt different — heavier, sharper, but alive.
I turned back to him. "You were right that night," I said quietly. "They wanted to break me."
He stepped closer, voice rough. "They didn't."
I shook my head. "No. They almost did. But they made a mistake. They forgot who I am, and who I had by my side."
His brows drew together.
"I'm done surviving," I said. "Kaelen, help me get better. I have to. For my father, for myself."
He searched my face — maybe for signs that this was bravado, or denial. But what he saw instead was resolve, steady and deliberate.
Slowly, Kaelen nodded, his voice dropping to something dangerous and reverent all at once.
"Let me know what to do. We'll overcome this."
The silence stretched long after the call, thick with the echoes of Mark's report and the shards of my teacup on the floor. The cold clarity that had risen in me was a shield, but it was a lonely one. I was done being a victim in my own story, but I was still a woman who flinched at sudden movements, whose lover was afraid to touch her.
I could see it in him — the storm he was holding back. The violence he wanted to unleash. The guilt that ate at him because he hadn't stopped it sooner.He thought distance was protection. That staying away from me was the only way to keep me safe from him.
But that distance was killing us both.
"Kaelen," I said quietly.
He didn't look up. "You should rest."
"I don't want to rest."
He finally lifted his head. There was exhaustion in his eyes — and fear. Not of me, but of hurting me again just by existing too close.
"What can I do for you, sweetheart?"
I took a deep breath, "Come closer."
"Are... are you sure? I... I don't know how to be near you anymore," he said hoarsely.
The admission was a wound — raw, stripped bare.
I crossed the space between us slowly. My body still trembled sometimes without warning, but not now. Not for him.
"Then let me show you," I said.
His breath caught. "Elara—"
"I need to remember," I whispered, voice breaking slightly. "What it feels like to be me. To want, and not fear it."
He closed his eyes. "You don't owe me that."
"I'm not doing it for you." My hand rose, fingers brushing his sleeve. He froze, every muscle in him coiled tight — but he didn't move away."I'm doing it for me."
It started with stillness — a silence heavy with what neither of us dared name. Then he exhaled, a slow, shuddering release, and let me take his hand.
His fingers trembled when they touched mine.
No hunger. No rush. Just warmth — fragile, uncertain, real.
He lifted my hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to the back of it, like a promise.My pulse stuttered, but I didn't flinch.
"Tell me if it's too much," he murmured.
"I will."
He drew me closer, one careful breath at a time, until there was no space left between us—only the tremor of my heartbeat, wild and uneven, pressed against his chest.
Every nerve in me screamed danger. My body couldn't tell the difference between past and present, between Kaelen and the hands that had hurt me. The instinct to run—to claw free—flared sharp and bright in my blood.
But I didn't move.
I focused on the sound of him instead. The slow, ragged cadence of his breathing. The rise and fall of his chest beneath my palms. The steady thump of his heart, heavy and real.
It anchored me.
His arms came around me then, strong but hesitant, as if he feared even his own strength. He didn't pull. He just held, giving me every possible chance to say no.
I didn't.
I let him hold me.
The air between us shifted—salt, warmth, and the faint scent of his cologne. He lowered his head, breath catching as it brushed the curve of my neck. The contact wasn't a kiss. It was a confession.
He breathed me in—slow, deliberate—his nose grazing the nape of my neck, tracing the small hollow beneath my ear, the dip of my collarbone. The sound he made was quiet, almost reverent, as though he was trying to memorize the fact that I was still here.
My muscles tensed again, instinctive and sharp. The warehouse came back in flashes—cold concrete, heavy hands, a camera's red eye.
No.
I forced air into my lungs. In. Out. In. Out. The panic was a tide, and I had to outbreathe it. Kaelen didn't move, didn't speak. He just stayed there, still as stone, holding the line until my trembling started to ease.
When I finally relaxed—just slightly—his hand shifted, barely a movement, his thumb brushing a slow circle against my back. It was grounding, rhythmic, wordless.
The warmth that spread through me then wasn't desire. It was something purer. A reclaiming.
I wasn't okay. Not yet.But in his arms, for the first time since that day, I felt like I could be.
We stood like that, wrapped in the quiet of the safe house, the world and its horrors held at bay by the circle of his arms. I could have stayed there for hours, letting the steady beat of his heart recalibrate my own.
But the peace was fragile, a soap bubble destined to pop. It was broken by the shrill, insistent ring of my phone.