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NINE

Author: Hummingbird
last update Last Updated: 2025-07-01 18:53:24

He pulled away from the hug and cupped my face in his hands.

“She would want you to be happy and safe, she would want you alive.”

“The guilt eats me everytime, not just the pain. I had trusted Nathan with her life. I shouldn't have.”

After a while, I went back to eating and the formerly delicious meal had turned into dry bark once it touched my tongue.

***

I sat opposite Jaylen and we were both going through the list of universities that would be the best for me.

“What about this one?” he asked, handing me his phone.

“It's too expensive, I can't afford it right now.”

I decided that I was going back to school to pursue my career as an architect. I had to forsake my dreams many years ago and I had dropped out, but Jaylen convinced me that it wasn't too late to go back and get a degree.

I didn't realize how expensive it would be. I ran my fingers through my hair and let out a frustrated sigh.

“I think I'm going to give up and just find a job somewhere.”

“I'm sure they offer schola
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  • Dear Ex-husband, I Don't Love You Anymore    ONE HUNDRED AND FIVE

    The halls were empty.Too empty.The smell of the lab had been long forgotten and their minds were concentrating on other things. Like the fact that there were too many padded rooms in the building. Their footsteps echoed against the tiled floor, bouncing off the walls like ghosts trying to find a way out. The smell of gunpowder still clung to the air, sharp and metallic. Jaylen’s pulse thundered in his ears as he pushed open another door, gun raised, eyes scanning every inch of the room. Nothing.No movement. No breath. No Mikhail.Only the faint hum of the lights above, flickering in and out of life like they were afraid to stay awake.“Clear,” Blade called from the far end of the corridor.Spade checked the next room. “Clear here too.”Jaylen exhaled slowly. “He’s gone.”Diana’s voice came quiet, trembling. “He wouldn’t just leave, would he?”Jaylen lowered his gun. “He's obviously playing some sort of game”"Why would he bring us here just to run away?" Blade asked "I don't thin

  • Dear Ex-husband, I Don't Love You Anymore    ONE HUNDRED AND FOUR

    The screens in front of him flickered like candlelight, each one a window into the chaos he’d made.Dan leaned back in his chair, the glow of the monitors washing over his face. His tie hung loose, the top button of his shirt undone. He looked almost human like that, but only almost.He rubbed his calloused palms together. He had been watching for about an hour. He's watched the man shoot at Jaylen and his team, he'd watch Mikhail roam the lab like a lunatic. The lab feed came through one channel, Antonio through another. The third screen was static, broken transmissions from the cameras near the outer perimeter.He’d built those cameras himself. He knew exactly how far they could see and how easily they could lie.His fingers moved lazily over the desk, tracing the edge of a folder that was already too familiar. Inside were old documents, photographs, blood samples, and signatures. He didn’t need to look at them anymore. He knew every name, every code, every consequence.He could s

  • Dear Ex-husband, I Don't Love You Anymore    ONE HUNDRED AND THREE

    The lights in the study were dim, drawn low enough that the world outside no longer existed. The curtains were closed and the scent of old paper and aged brandy lingered in the air.Bruno entered the room quietly and dropped two laptops in front of him. He wore an ivory suit, crisp and clean, a contrast against the heavy darkness of the room. It was his favorite color, the color of purity. The irony was not lost on either of them.His dark eyes held something close to panic as he powered on the laptops. “I thought you were supposed to be flying out tonight,” he said, his voice low.Antonio didn’t look up. His attention was already drawn to the screens.“There’s been an emergency,” Bruno said quickly and pointed.The screens came alive, flickering through static. Antonio sat behind his desk, a glass of brandy untouched beside him. The liquid glowed faintly in the lamplight, amber like the inside of a dying flame.Both laptops hummed as multiple feeds connected. The images sharpened. A

  • Dear Ex-husband, I Don't Love You Anymore    ONE HUNDRED AND TWO

    Mikhail’s POVThe echo of the gunshot fades slowly, rolling down the empty corridor like thunder over dead ground.Then there’s silence.That delicious kind of silence that comes after chaos, when the world holds its breath, not out of peace, but anticipation.Mikhail takes the elevator to the room at the top and he steps into the room. He watches them through the monitors in the observation room. He doesn’t move until Jaylen lowers his weapon.“My brother,” he murmurs. The words taste foreign, almost bitter. “Still so quick to kill.”He steps away from the monitor, the soles of his boots clicking softly against the tile. The lab smells of chemicals and blood. Always blood. No matter how many times they clean the floors, it lingers. The ghosts never leave.He picks up a photo from the table, one he'd kept all these years. Two boys, both smiling. One with dark hair, one light. Their hands are stained with dirt, their grins too wide for what they would become.Dan had taken that photo

  • Dear Ex-husband, I Don't Love You Anymore    ONE HUNDRED AND ONE

    The air inside the lab is colder.Too cold.It smells of antiseptic and iron, a sterile kind of rot. The walls are white, but age has yellowed the corners. A strip light hums faintly overhead, flickering as if uncertain whether to stay alive.Jaylen raises his gun, every sense open. Behind him, Diana steps lightly, her robe traded for one of Blade’s dark jackets. Jaylen didn't like the idea of her wearing another man's jacket but he didn't like the idea of her catching a cold either. She doesn’t speak. Her silence has weight, it’s fear and stubbornness and loyalty pressed into one fragile shape.It turns him on, the fire behind her eyes. He'd seen it yesterday before she demanded for him to stop all of this. The killing. He promised her that he would try but he didn't know what would happen to him when Dan finally died. Would it be easy to stop or would he realize that he'd slowly been swallowed up by the act. That he’d grown addicted. Blade moves first, sweeping the room with his

  • Dear Ex-husband, I Don't Love You Anymore    ONE HUNDRED

    There is a river of blood crawling towards Diana and as much as she doesn't want to look, the body calls towards her like a moth to a flame. She cannot resist and it doesn't help that no one is making a move to dispose of the body. It's as if they've already forgotten about the man who they'd just murdered. Diana stared at her shaking hands before turning to see Jaylen watching her with a look she could not read. The body was still cooling when Blade spoke. He tossed the bloodied knife aside and leaned on the counter, his face unreadable.“We already have the location,” he said. “The lab Dan and Katya built here. Although it's not where all of this started, it's where it continued.”Jaylen wiped his hands on a towel and stared at the floor. “Then that’s where it ends.”Diana stood behind him, arms folded tight across her chest. Her robe had loosened a little, the fabric falling off one shoulder. Her eyes were swollen, red. She hadn’t said a word since the shot.Spade exhaled throu

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