Chapter 3 Break up

Evelyn's POV

The inside of the car smelled like gunpowder and expensive cigars.

I sat curled against the door, watching him slide in under the shelter of an umbrella someone was holding for him. Every movement he made radiated that heavy, untouchable authority. It made it hard to breathe.

"Drive."

I heard him say.

Streetlamps slid past the window one after another, light and shadow flickering across his face.

I didn't dare turn toward him, but my peripheral vision kept catching his sharp, beautiful profile—

Everything was different from three years ago.

Back then he'd been slender, soft-spoken, careful with his words.

Now he sat here with his shoulders back, spine straight, like a blade sheathed but ready.

In the silence, he pulled out a lighter engraved with a rose seal and lit a cigar held between two fingers.

Raindrops pattered against the roof. It made me think of the night we broke up, three years ago. It had been a rain just like this, heavy and unrelenting.

The look on his face when I said the word "breakup" was burned into my memory.

"Say that again."

He'd stood across from me in a washed-out shirt, hair plastered to his forehead by the rain. Water ran down his beautiful face.

I took a deep breath.

"I'm breaking up with you. I don't love you anymore."

"Did you hear me?"

"Why?"

In the rain, I watched his lips part and close. His eyes went red. I couldn't tell if the wetness running down his face was tears or just the rain.

"Why?" I laughed. My nose stung against my will. My eyes burned. "What can you give me? Power? Money? You're not even the favorite bastard son in your own family. You're a complete failure, Brode. I don't want you anymore."

My whole body was shaking from the words I forced myself to say. He stood there, stunned, his eyes going redder.

His voice only got softer.

"Give me more time. I can make it."

He reached for my hand. I pulled away.

"Don't bother. I'm done waiting. No amount of time is going to fix a failure like you. It's a waste."

Saying those words felt like ripping out a piece of my own heart.

But I couldn't stop. I had to finish. I had to make him hate me.

It was the only way he'd leave.

The only way he'd get out of this pit I was stuck in.

Brode stood frozen in place. The dim glow of the streetlamp caught the wet shine in his eyes.

I turned to run, but his voice cut through the rain and reached me.

"Evelyn!"

"I don't believe it!"

"I don't believe you're breaking up with me over this!"

I stopped. I heard his voice crack, faint, but clear.

"Turn around. Look me in the eye. Say it again. Say you don't love me."

The rain hit my face, cold and sharp.

Then I tore the necklace he'd given me off my neck with everything I had and threw it at his feet.

"I don't love you! Or anything you gave me!"

The necklace landed in a puddle, catching a cold glint of light. His eyes were hidden behind his wet hair. I couldn't see his face anymore.

I disappeared around a corner.

I knew exactly what it felt like to have someone important being torn out of your life, that dizzy, unsteady feeling, like you could fall any second.

I covered my mouth. Somewhere he couldn't see or hear me, I swallowed down every sob, every broken sound.

My mother's eight hundred thousand dollar gambling debt had carved a chasm between me and him that neither of us could cross.

The people collecting said if I couldn't pay, they'd cut off my hands and feet and sell me to some rich man as a sex slave.

He still had a future. I couldn't drag him down into this.

The one thing I could do for him was make him hate me.

Make him leave. As far away as possible.

For three years I'd sold my blood, tried test drugs, done whatever it took to chip away at the massive debt my mother had dumped on me.

Every time I thought about all of it, the struggle, the shame, my whole body wound tight like a wire.

I pulled a slim cigarette from my pocket and lit it.

The faint, tea-scented smoke filled my lungs and loosened something in me.

That's when Brode spoke.

"When did you start smoking?"

My fingers twitched around the cigarette.

"A long time ago. I don't remember."

He went quiet. A beat later, he reached over, plucked the cigarette out of my fingers, and tossed it out the window.

"I don't allow cheap cigarette smoke in my car."

I stared at the ember vanishing into the rain. Something hot and tight was rising in my chest.

"Right. Of course. Someone like me doesn't measure up to your standards. Everything I bring in is second-rate. Would you mind dropping me off somewhere?"

The corner of his mouth twitched.

Then, after a long pause: "Three years, and this is what you've turned into?"

His words made me want to laugh. But I didn't want to get into it with him anymore. I just wanted to get away from this man who was suffocating me and breaking me at the same time.

There was a lighter in his hand, engraved with a rose seal. I'd given it to him a long time ago.

It wasn't worth much. I'd assumed he would have thrown it out.

But he'd kept it. He was still using it. The engraving had worn down a little.

His hand didn't look like the hand of a man in his twenties. It was covered in knife scars and gun calluses, worked over by years of violence.

And then there was that bearing, the weight of a man at the top of everything. He was a Don now. Untouchable.

"Turn and look at me, Evelyn."

I didn't move. I was still searching for a response when his calloused, scarred hand caught my chin and forced me to face him.

His severe, beautiful face filled my vision. My breathing staggered. I was shaking, from guilt, maybe.

"Look at me."

Something stubborn in me refused. I kept my eyes down. I didn't say a word.

He finally lost his temper. His grip on my chin tightened.

"All these years, and you have nothing to say to me?"

I could see the hatred churning in him. My eyes stung.

But no matter how much it hurt, no matter that he was the Don now—

The choice I'd made three years ago was done. I wasn't going to say I regretted it. Whatever he did to me after this, I'd take it.

I wrapped my hand around his wrist and pulled his hand off my face.

Then I heard my own voice, colder than I'd ever meant it to sound.

"Don't flatter yourself. The only one still hung up on ancient history is you."