The air inside the ballroom was thick enough to choke on—a suffocating mixture of expensive cologne, dry champagne, and the sharp, metallic tang of artificiality. Shawn stood near the velvet-draped periphery, his fingers tight around the stem of a crystal flute he had no intention of drinking. He felt like an intruder in his own life, a ghost haunting a gala he hadn’t wanted to attend, but had been coerced into by the suffocating weight of social expectation.
Across the room, the crowd parted like a sea for Ludovic. He looked untouchable in a charcoal tuxedo that fit him with predatory precision. And beside him, draped in emerald silk that shimmered under the chandeliers, was Sheila.
Shawn’s breath hitched. He had thought the hospital had burned away the illusions, that the pact they had made—the promise of a future—had cleared the board. But here, in the cold, unforgiving light of high society, Ludovic was playing a different game.
Ludovic leaned in, his lips brushing against the shell of Sheila’s ear. He whispered something that made her tilt her head back and laugh—a bright, crystalline sound that cut through the ambient chatter like a razor. Ludovic’s hand rested possessively on the small of her back, his thumb tracing slow, deliberate circles against the silk. It was a gesture Shawn knew intimately. It was the same touch Ludovic had used to claim him in the quiet, shadowed corners of their shared past.
“Careful, Shawn,” a voice murmured beside him. It was a waiter passing with a tray, or perhaps just a figment of his own fraying sanity.
Shawn didn’t move. He watched as Ludovic caught Sheila’s gaze, his expression softening into that practiced, devastating tenderness—the look he reserved for those he intended to keep, or those he intended to break. The room tilted. The faces of the elite blurred into a smear of flesh-toned masks.
We reconciled, Shawn thought, the words feeling like ash in his mouth. We promised.
But the promise felt a thousand miles away now. Ludovic wasn’t looking at him. He hadn’t looked at him once since they entered. It was as if Shawn were a piece of furniture, a background prop designed to heighten the drama of Ludovic’s presence.
Ludovic turned, his eyes sweeping the room, and for a fleeting, jagged second, they locked with Shawn’s. There was no warmth there. No recognition. Just a cool, detached appraisal that stripped Shawn down to his insecurities and left him shivering. Then, Ludovic turned back to Sheila, offering her a glass of champagne with a smirk that felt like a slap.
Shawn’s stomach roiled. The humiliation wasn’t a dull ache; it was a fire, bright and corrosive. He had fought through the trauma, the accident, the betrayal, and the knife wound, all to end up right back where he started: a satellite orbiting a sun that grew colder every time it drew him in.
He set his glass down on a nearby marble pedestal with a sharp clack. It didn’t shatter, though he wished it would.
“Going somewhere?”
Shawn turned to find his mother hovering nearby, her face tight with worry. “The air is thin in here, Mom. I need to breathe.”
“Ludovic is hosting this, Shawn. It would be rude to—”
“Rude?” Shawn let out a dry, jagged laugh. “I think we’re well past the point of social niceties.”
He pushed through the crowd, ignoring the glares of those he jostled. He didn’t care about the decorum or the pedigree of the room. Every step he took toward the exit was a protest, every movement a denial of the script Ludovic was forcing him to play. He moved through the grand French doors and out into the manicured, silent darkness of the terrace, the cool night air biting at his heated skin.
But the silence offered no comfort. It only amplified the drumming in his ears. He wasn’t going to let this happen. Not again. Not while he had the memory of his own worth, however scarred it might be.
He waited, his chest heaving, listening to the muffled thrum of the music behind him. He didn’t have to wait long. He knew the pattern. He knew the rhythm of Ludovic’s arrogance.
The heavy glass door creaked open, and the scent of expensive tobacco drifted into the garden.
“You’re making a scene,” Ludovic’s voice drawled, detached and smooth as velvet. He didn’t look at Shawn as he stepped into the moonlight, lighting a cigarette with a flick of a gold lighter. “People are starting to talk, Shawn. You’re acting like a jilted lover, and it’s unbecoming.”
Shawn whirled around, his hands clenched into white-knuckled fists at his sides. “A jilted lover? Is that what you think this is? Is that why you brought her? To show me exactly where I stand in your hierarchy of playthings?”
Ludovic exhaled a plume of smoke, his eyes narrowing. “Sheila is a business associate. You’re overthinking again. It’s a flaw you’ve never managed to grow out of.”
“Don’t you dare talk to me about flaws,” Shawn snapped, his voice trembling with a rage that had been simmering for weeks. “We were in that hospital room, Ludovic. You said—we said—we were done with the games. We were done with the lies.”
“I said we were together,” Ludovic countered, stepping closer, his shadow falling over Shawn like a shroud. “I never said the world stopped spinning. I never said I would lock myself in a cage just to appease your need for constant reassurance.”
“This isn’t about reassurance! This is about respect!” Shawn stepped into his space, his heart hammering against his ribs. “You look at her, you touch her, you treat her with this… this care. And then you look at me like I’m an inconvenience to your social standing. If you wanted me back, why parade your indifference like a weapon?”
Ludovic laughed, but it was a cold, brittle sound. He reached out, his hand hovering for a second before he gripped Shawn’s chin, forcing him to look up. “Because I don’t know how to do anything else, Shawn. Because when I look at you, I see every reason why I should have left you to die in that bar. You provoke me. You always have.”
“Then let me go,” Shawn whispered, his voice cracking. “If I’m just a burden, if I’m just a reminder of the things you want to forget, let me go.”
Ludovic’s grip tightened, his thumb brushing against Shawn’s lower lip in a gesture that was half-caress, half-threat. “You know I can’t. We’re tied together, remember? By blood and by all the wretched things we’ve done to each other. You don’t get to walk away when the party gets dull.”
“I’m not a part of your collection, Ludovic!” Shawn jerked his face away, his eyes burning with unshed tears. “I am a person. And if you can’t see that—if you can’t give me more than these public displays of cruelty—then I’m done. I mean it. I’d rather be alone, truly alone, than be the shadow in your ballroom.”
Ludovic stood still, the cherry of his cigarette glowing bright in the darkness. For a moment, the mask slipped. His arrogance wavered, replaced by a raw, terrifying hunger that made Shawn’s knees weak.
“You don’t mean that,” Ludovic said, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous register. “You’ve tried leaving before. You always come back. You’re addicted to the ache, Shawn. And I’m the only one who knows how to feed it.”
“Then you’re the devil,” Shawn spat, the words heavy with a finality that made the night air feel suddenly, deathly cold.
He turned away, not waiting for a response, his heart a frantic, shattered thing inside his chest. He didn’t look back as he walked toward the parking lot, leaving the music, the lights, and the man who owned his soul behind in the dark.
The terrace door clicked shut, severing the swell of the string quartet into a muffled, rhythmic throb. Shawn’s heels clicked against the cold stone of the veranda, a sharp, frantic sound that mirrored the erratic pulse in his throat. His lungs burned, not from the chill of the night air, but from the suffocating, cloying scent of Ludovic’s cologne—that expensive, woody musk that had been his sanctuary and his cage for far too long.
He didn’t make it to the parking lot. He didn’t even make it to the gardens.
“Shawn!”
The voice was a jagged blade, cutting through the silence of the perimeter. Ludovic was behind him, footsteps heavy and unsteady. Shawn stiffened, his shoulders rising toward his ears. He kept walking, his eyes fixed on the distant, flickering glow of the streetlamps near the gate. He wanted to be anywhere but here, anywhere where he didn’t have to look at the man who had just used him as a prop to keep Sheila in his orbit.
A hand clamped onto his shoulder, spinning him around with more force than necessary. The sudden momentum sent Shawn stumbling back against the rough stucco wall of the manor’s exterior.
Ludovic stood before him, chest heaving. His tie was loosened, his hair slightly disheveled—the cracks in the pristine armor. He smelled of scotch and volatility.
“You don’t get to walk away,” Ludovic spat, his eyes dark, drowning in that familiar, poisonous possessiveness. “Not when I’m still speaking to you.”
“I’m not a piece of your inventory, Ludovic,” Shawn choked out, his voice trembling despite his best efforts to remain cold. “You want to play the bachelor? Fine. Go back inside and entertain her. But don’t you dare come out here and try to keep me on a tether.”
Ludovic let out a sharp, incredulous laugh, stepping closer until the space between them was electric with danger. “You think this is a game? You think I don’t see what you’re doing? You’re trying to punish me. You’ve always been the one to run, to leave me standing there with nothing but the echo of your exit.”
“I left because I was dying!” Shawn shouted, the sound raw and tearing. “I left because I loved you with every pathetic fiber of my being, and you used that love to carve me up and serve me to your ego. I came back—I tried to fix this, to be what you wanted—but you’re still the same. You’re still hiding, you’re still hurting me just to prove you can.”
“I am protecting myself,” Ludovic countered, his voice dropping to a dangerous, intimate whisper. He reached out, his thumb tracing the line of Shawn’s jaw with a tenderness that felt like a mockery. “If I don’t control the narrative, you’ll just leave again. You’ll find another version of Ryan, someone safe, someone who doesn’t see the monster in me.”
“Then let me go!” Shawn shoved at his chest, but Ludovic held firm, his grip like iron. “If I’m a monster, let me go so I can be with someone who doesn’t see me that way! Why are you doing this? If you hate me so much, if I’m just a jilted lover in your collection, why not just walk away?”
“Because I can’t,” Ludovic snarled, and for a split second, the facade fractured completely, revealing a depth of raw, agonizing need that mirrored Shawn’s own. “I don’t know how to exist without you, and I don’t know how to let you be anything other than mine. It’s a sickness, Shawn. You made me this way.”
“No,” Shawn whispered, tears finally blurring his vision. “You made yourself this way. You’re terrified of being loved because you don’t think you deserve it. So you manipulate everyone around you until they become as broken as you are.”
He looked up at Ludovic, searching for a sign of remorse, for a spark of the man he had once dreamed of growing old with. But there was nothing but that defensive, arrogant wall.
“I love you, Ludovic,” Shawn said, the confession feeling like a final, weary surrender. “I love you more than I love my own life. And that is why I have to destroy what we have. It’s the only way to save myself.”
Ludovic’s face darkened, his expression curdling into something cruel. “If you walk away now, you don’t get to come back. I won’t be here next time you stumble. I won’t save you from the next brawl, the next bottle, the next disaster. This is it, Shawn. Are you really prepared for the silence?”
“I’ve been living in silence for years,” Shawn replied, his voice eerily calm. He pulled away from the wall, stepping out from under Ludovic’s reach. “You think being without you is the worst thing that could happen to me? You already made sure of that. The worst thing has already happened. Everything else is just details.”
He turned his back on Ludovic, not waiting for a reply. He walked past the stone pillars, past the fountain, out toward the gravel crunching under his feet.
Behind him, he heard Ludovic call his name one more time, a sound that was half-command and half-plea, but Shawn didn’t look back. He kept his stride steady, feeling the heavy, suffocating weight of the gala lifting with every step he took toward the dark, empty parking lot. He was finally walking away, and for the first time in his life, he wasn’t looking for a place to hide. He was just looking for the exit.
ns216.73.216.146da2
and then Add to home screen.