Chapter 308: Helplessness
KAEL
I walked out of the office with her eyes still on me. Or maybe it was just my mind replaying them...those wide, wounded eyes I had no right to meet. Convenient. A game. I could still hear my own voice cutting her open, and it tasted like ash in my mouth.
Not because I hated her. God, if only it were that simple. I said those things because I had to. Because if I’d let her see even a flicker of what I still felt, I would’ve kept her chained to me. And wasn’t that what she didn’t want? Wasn’t I the selfish bastard suffocating her, clinging to her when she clearly wanted to be somewhere else? With someone else?
I had to make her believe it. That she was nothing. That I could throw her away.
Because if it ended clean...if I let her walk away knowing I still loved her like breathing...I wouldn’t survive it.
Still, her face wouldn’t leave me. The way she tried to speak. Maybe she wanted to explain. Maybe she was about to tell me the kiss with Sylas meant nothing. But she didn’t need to. I’d already decided for both of us. I’d let her go. I’d cut the leash, even if it left me bleeding.
She looked surprised when I said the contract was over. I understood why. I never let go first. I always kept my grip until she tore herself out of it. This time... I released her. And maybe that was the only mercy I had left to give her.
"Mr. Roman," a voice interrupted, slick and eager. One of those boot-licking executives...Martinez, I think...stepped into my path with his colleagues trailing. "About the energy merger, the board from..."
I didn’t let him finish.
"You’ll have my answer when I decide you’re worth one," I said flatly, not even looking at him. "Until then, don’t crowd me again unless you’re ready to lose your seat."
Their faces went pale, all those powerful men reduced to anxious sheep. They nodded, stepped back, bowing their heads like I was a king they feared. And maybe I was. Maybe that’s all I had left now...the fear.
I kept walking, stone-faced, while inside I was crumbling. By the time I slid into the backseat of the car, the weight of it all finally dropped into my chest. I leaned back, shut my eyes, but her face was still there. Her voice. Her hands reaching for me.
The driver asked If we were headed to the airport.
"Yes," I said, though it felt like every word scraped out of me.
I didn’t know if I was running from her or from myself.
It had only been a few days since that night, but it felt like years. Since Sarah. Since she forced her hands, her body, her poison into me. I’d been unraveling long before, but this? This tipped me over the edge.
The forensics team...specialists who were supposed to catch everything...came up with nothing. No trace on the glass. No trace anywhere. She’d already cleaned it. And the CCTV only covered the entrance to my penthouse, not inside. I’d insisted on that years ago. I couldn’t stand being watched. Not after my father, who made a life out of keeping me under his thumb, his eyes, his leash. But now that decision burned me. Because I had nothing. Nothing but the memory of her breath, her weight, her touch...burned into me like a brand I couldn’t scrub off.
It wasn’t just that she touched me. It was that she took me away from myself. That’s what it felt like. Like I’d been carved out of my own skin and left hollow. My body wasn’t mine anymore. And it made me sick. Made me want to tear it off and crawl out of it.
And the worst part...the cruelest part...was that it was Sarah. Aria’s Sarah. The best friend she trusted, the one she would never doubt. Even if I told her, would she believe me? Sarah herself had whispered that she wouldn’t. And she was probably right.
So I said nothing. Except to Niko. Because Niko already knew the kind of rot that lived in people like us.
I reached the airport and the black cars parted like they always did, escorting me straight to the private jet. A display of power, of wealth, of control. The irony was laughable. I was exhausted. Tired in a way no amount of money, no amount of dominance, could mask. I wanted everything to stop. Everyone to shut up. I wanted the silence to eat me whole.
Helplessness. That was the word that clung to me like rot. I’d spent my whole life suffocating under it, being told by my father that I was nothing but his pawn. And I’d clawed my way out, built myself into something untouchable, so I’d never feel that way again. And now... here I was. Helpless all over again. Pills didn’t silence it. Sleep wouldn’t come. Control slipped through my hands like sand.
The only person who could have saved me from it was Aria. But even she made me feel helpless. Because all I could see, every time I shut my eyes, was her mouth pressed to Sylas. That single video ruined me more than Sarah did. Because Sarah was poison, but Aria... Aria was the oxygen I breathed. And she’d given it to someone else.
Maybe I’d been wrong all along. Maybe my father was right. Maybe I didn’t know what love was. Maybe all I knew was how to chain, to suffocate, to control. And if that was true, then letting her go was mercy. Maybe the only real love I could give her was freeing her from me.
That was why I was here. Running again. The only way I knew how to survive.
Inside the jet, I sank into the leather seat, staring at nothing. My phone buzzed. A message from Erin. She’d gotten the package I sent...the dog tag, Ivan’s dog tag. The only piece of him she could have. I couldn’t deny her that.
Thank you, she wrote.
I didn’t reply. My thumb hovered, then I shoved the phone back into my pocket. But it rang again. Her name lit up the screen. Erin. I should have been angry at her...for what she did that night, for kissing me drunk, for trying to bridge a wound that couldn’t be bridged. But I wasn’t. I couldn’t be. She was Ivan’s little sister. The only one left to carry his name. She was broken. Vulnerable. Just like me.
Still, I declined. I wasn’t ready. Not for her. Not for anyone. Not even myself.
I pressed the phone into Niko’s hand without looking at him.
"Take it," I muttered. My voice sounded like gravel in my own throat. "And bring me something strong. Absinthe. Tequila. Vodka. I don’t care. Just something that burns enough to kill the noise."
He hesitated. "Sir..."
"Now."
The engines hummed as the jet prepared for takeoff, but all I felt was the weight in my chest. Heavy. Suffocating. Crushing. Like no matter how far I flew, I’d still be dragging this body, this hollowed-out thing, with me.
And God, I hated it.