Fangs, Fate & Other Bad Decisions novel Chapter 39

Fangs, Fate & Other Bad Decisions

Chapter 39

Her front door clicks shut behind me, and I just stand on her porch for a moment, doubting my resolve, which has been a significant asset until

now.

My hands are fists in my pockets, my pulse is wrecked, and my mouth still burns with the shape of hers.

I should walk to the car, where Mike patiently waits for me. I should keep moving and not look back, but I can’t. I just fucking can’t. Not yet.

Inside that house, her house, I left something behind I can’t name. And I honestly don’t know if

f I’ll ever get it back.

When I finally descend the steps and walk down her pathway, 1 move like a man walking away from a cliff he in fact wants to jump off.

Mike stands beside the SUV, but clever man that he is, he doesn’t speak as I approach. He just opens the door and stands back. Respectful and professional, like always.

I slide into the backseat like a man taking his place in a coffin and stare straight ahead, nothing really registering in my line of vision. The jacket she gave back as I headed towards her front door is folded neatly beside me. I almost hate it because it doesn’t smell like her anymore.

The door shuts behind me with a soft finality. Mike settles in the driver’s seat and starts the car, but he doesn’t ask where we’re going. He already knows.

Silence sits heavy between us as he drives. The streetlights slide across the glass, casting me in gold, then darkness, then gold again. It’s a rhythm I used to find comforting, now, though, it feels like a countdown.

I lean my head back against the leather headrest, close my eyes, and force myself to replay the moment I kissed her. Not for pleasure, and not even for punishment. But as proof.

Proof that it happened and that I wasn’t imagining how she had clung to me. Proof of the way her lips trembled just before they met mine, and the way her voice broke when she told me to go.

She didn’t want me to leave. And I didn’t want to go.

But I did, because I’m still a coward in all the ways that matter.

Somewhere behind me, that house is dark now. Quiet even. And maybe, if I had a soul left worth a damn, I’d turn around and tell her everything.

But I won’t, because she’ll never be safe if she knows what I am, what I’ve done, and what follows me, even into the dark.

I don’t realize I’ve been staring blankly up at the car’s roof liner until Mike speaks, his voice gentle, and cutting through the silence like warm steel. “You look wrecked.”

I blink, startled at his observation, and then glance toward the front of the car, at the back of his head. The privacy screen is still down, and his eyes are on the road, but his tone is different in that moment. Not employee–to–employer, nor soldier–to–king. More like…father–to–son.”

“I’m fine,” I say automatically, the lie roughly grating my throat on its way out.

Mike doesn’t push–he never does–but after a moment, he says quietly, “There’s a lot you can lose by loving someone like that.”

I look away, afraid of what I’ll say should I attempt to answer him.

And then he adds, “But there’s more to lose by pretending you don’t.”

Again, I don’t answer him. Because I can’t. Because I don’t know what scares me more–that he’s right…or that it might be too late either way.

My private elevator opens directly into my penthouse.

I don’t need keys or security codes–only biometric access and silence. Always silence.

But tonight, the silence feels different.

I step into the space I built so I could be untouchable–polished concrete, floor–to–ceiling windows, open spaces, centuries of wandering. Everything here was chosen to say one thing: Control.

1 strip off my shirt, unbuttoning it slowly as I walk past the kitchen. The marble countertops gleam under the ambient lighting, untouched since 1 left here early Friday evening. The bottle of scotch a satisfied client gave me still sits, unopened, on the sideboard from earlier last week.

I robotically reach for it, pour myself a glass, and slowly sip the burned amber liquid.

It burns, but not nearly enough.

1 try another sip for scientific purposes, but still, the burn is not enough.

1 carry the glass toward the living room, where everything is sleek in black, grey, and steel. The city glows beneath the windows, like it’s trying to tempt me back into its chaos, but the cacophony from down below doesn’t reach me here. Nothing does.

I sit on the leather couch and open my laptop, hoping it will distract me. Work used to be my anchor–reports, strategies, international meetings,

and medical breakthroughs that took decades to perfect.

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