The rain followed us.
It wasn't gentle this time. It hammered the windshield, drumming like a warning, a rhythm of regret and pursuit.
Zane and Zara slept in the back, their small faces bathed in the flickering streetlights. I kept my hands steady on the wheel, even as the ache in my chest pulsed with every mile we drove farther from the life we built.
I didn't know where we were heading. Only that I had to keep going until the air stopped tasting like fear.
But halfway through the mountain pass, the headlights behind me appeared, a steady glow that didn't fade.
At first, I told myself it was coincidence.
Until it drew closer.
Until it flashed once, twice, a signal I knew by heart.
His.
My breath caught. "No…"
Zara stirred, whispering, "Mommy?"
"Shh, baby. Go back to sleep."
I pressed harder on the gas. But the car behind me matched every move, every turn. And then, just before the next bend, a dark SUV swerved ahead and blocked the road.
My heart stopped.
Brakes screamed. Tires skidded. The world spun in the blur of rain and headlights.
When the car stopped, I saw him, stepping out into the storm, drenched, unyielding, eyes dark as the night itself.
Alexander.
He reached my door before I could think. Opened it without asking.
"Get out, Selene."
His voice was quiet. Too quiet. The kind that carried restraint, the kind that could break.
"Don't do this," I said, clutching the steering wheel. "They're asleep."
"Then don't wake them."
"Alexander…"
"Get out."
Something in me gave up pretending. I stepped into the rain, the cold slicing through my skin like memory.
He stood there, towering and heartbreakingly human, hair plastered to his forehead, breath rising in the chill.
"You think you can just vanish?" His words trembled, not with anger, but with pain. "After everything?"
"I wasn't vanishing," I whispered. "I was protecting them. From all of this. From you."
He flinched.
That word, you, hit him like a slap.
His hands curled into fists, then fell open. "You think I'd ever hurt them?"
"No. But you're hurting yourself, and that's going to take them down with you."
"Selene…"
"No," I said sharply, tears mixing with the rain. "You don't see it, do you? You're building walls so high no one can reach you anymore, not even me."
He stepped closer, his voice raw. "And what do you want me to do? Watch while they destroy everything I built? Everything I swore to protect?"
"I want you to remember what you built it for."
That silenced him.
The rain softened for a moment, as if even the sky was listening.
"I loved the man who built a life, not an empire," I whispered. "The man who taught our children that courage was quiet. But this…" my voice cracked, "this man is ready to burn the world just to prove he can keep it."
His shoulders shook once, a breath, a tremor. "You think I don't know that?"
"Then stop fighting everyone and start fighting yourself."
For a long moment, there was only rain. His jaw tightened, his throat worked, but his eyes, oh, those eyes, finally broke open.
When he spoke again, his voice was lower, quieter, stripped bare.
"You walked away once before," he said. "You left, and it nearly killed me."
"Alexander…"
He shook his head, stepping closer until I could feel the warmth of him through the cold. "You won't do that again. Not this time."
He reached out, not rough, but firm, his hand trembling as it caught mine.
"I'm not letting you go twice, Selene."
I should have pulled away.
I should have told him this wasn't the way.
But his voice wasn't the command of a man used to control, it was the plea of one terrified to lose what's left of his heart.
"Let me go," I whispered, even as my fingers betrayed me and curled around his.
"Tell me you don't love me," he said.
I opened my mouth, but no sound came.
Because love was still there.
Bruised. Buried. But there.
He stepped closer, until his forehead rested against mine, until the world around us vanished into rain and breath.
"I know I've lost myself," he murmured. "But you're the only thing that's ever made me want to find my way back."
And there it was, the truth he'd buried beneath vengeance and fear.
Raw. Unpolished. Real.
Tears fell freely now, though I couldn't tell whose they were.
When he finally pulled back, his eyes were gentler, like he'd just seen the wreckage of his own soul.
"I'll stop," he whispered. "For you. For them. Just… don't leave me in the dark again."
My heart clenched, caught between reason and longing.
The rain eased. The silence hung heavy, the kind that demanded a choice.
I looked back at the car, at our sleeping children, then at the man I'd once believed could move mountains.
Maybe he still could, but this time, I prayed he'd move the one inside himself.
I nodded slowly, just once. "Then prove it, Alexander. Don't cage love. Redeem it."
His hand fell away, but his eyes never did.
And for the first time in what felt like forever, I saw not the tycoon or the avenger, but the man who had once simply wanted to be loved and forgiven.