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Chapter 74 - Everything We Couldn't Say

last update Last Updated: 2025-05-01 11:21:35

Aria

“No, Damon!” I snap. “Don’t you dare. I never had you. Not really. I had a jailer. A freaking captor. A man who dragged me out of a hospital bed and threw me into this freaking cage!”

He flinches. Just slightly.

But it’s enough.

“And I fought. Every damn day. I tried to hold on to what little I remembered. To what I felt. To my name. But you crushed all of it under your suspicion.”

“You could’ve died out there,” he says, voice low, dangerous.

“Then maybe I’d finally be free.”

Silence.

He walks toward me. Slowly.

I should move. But I don’t.

“I searched every fucking corner of that alley,” he says, voice hoarse. “And when I found your phone, I thought—” He stops himself. Shakes his head.

“I thought I was too late.”

Emotion clogs my throat.

But I don’t look away.

“You’re angry because I dropped my phone?”

“I’m angry,” he growls, hesitating for a bit, “because I care.”

That breaks me.

Just like that.

Because it’s the last thing I expect to hear. From him.

The air crackles.

But I don
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