Chapter 4

I was panting, my heart beating in my throat, feeling the weight of my own existence crashing down on me. The silence that followed inside the car was deafening.

I had just experienced the most intense moment of my adult life with the ghost of my greatest crime, and he was still there, in the passenger seat, wiping the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand.

He had no idea he had just brought me back to life and condemned me to hell at the same time.

I tried to catch my breath, my chest rising and falling while the oxygen seemed insufficient for what I had just lived through. Kyle pulled away and looked at me with that empty expression of someone who had simply completed a routine task.

“I told you I was good.”

He murmured, a trace of satisfaction for his work in his voice.

“It’s ten dollars.”

That hit me like a bucket of ice water. The reality sank in with unbearable weight. I would have given every cent in my bank account, every share of Vance Corp for that moment, but for him, my sensory rebirth cost only ten dollars.

Unfortunately, I also knew exactly where that money would go,the feverish glint in his eyes left no doubt.

I reached into my wallet and pulled out the first bill I saw: fifty dollars. When he saw the amount, Kyle smiled genuinely for the first time. It wasn’t a smile for me,it was the smile of someone who had just secured his next fix.

“Thanks.”

He said simply, before opening the door and stepping out, disappearing into the night.

I remained there, paralyzed. The leather seat was still warm, his scent still lingered in the car. My mind was a chaos of pleasure, guilt, and the raw shock of having found Kyle in that state.

I pulled myself together as best I could, zipped up with trembling hands, and started the engine. But I couldn’t just drive away.

Keeping a safe distance, I followed Kyle. I watched as he stopped a few meters ahead and met a guy standing on a dark corner.

The exchange was quick: my money for his poison. He kept walking with hurried, almost anxious steps until he entered an old building with peeling facade and broken windows. It must have been where he lived or where he hid from the world.

I stared at that gloomy facade, gripping the steering wheel tightly. For a second, I had the impulse to get out, climb those filthy stairs, and tell him everything. To say who I was, beg for a forgiveness I didn’t deserve, explain that I had never forgotten him. But fear won.

The cowardice that was born in that abandoned building thirteen years ago was still alive inside me. I gave up.

I got home still numb. The silence of my penthouse had never felt so deafening.

I could still feel the trace of that unforgettable orgasm from the car,a sensation that seemed to have awakened nerves I thought were dead. I was hard again, a painful and urgent erection.

I went into the bathroom, let the hot water fall over my shoulders, and tried to satisfy myself. I closed my eyes, tried to focus on what I had felt in the car, but it didn’t work.

No matter how hard I tried, no matter how much I used the memory of his touch, my orgasm didn’t even reach ten percent of what I had experienced earlier.

The frustration came like a wave, bitter and violent. I punched the marble wall, feeling the water wash away my almost-tears of rage.

Kyle wouldn’t leave my head. He had become my addiction, my cure, and my greatest punishment,all in a single night. And the worst part was knowing that to get that feeling back, I would have to dive into the same hell he was living in.

He was broken,it was obvious,and I was even more so. I needed to find a way to redeem myself, or at least a way to have him again, even if it was built on the same lies as tonight.

I didn’t want to repeat the same mistakes from the past, but I had no idea how to fix this after so many years.

Seeing him like that and knowing that part of it was my fault would certainly not let me sleep in peace from now on.