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Chapter 19: — Redemption or Relapse
The night pressed against the windows of Lucas's penthouse — a restless silence broken only by the low hum of the rain.
He stood by the glass wall, phone in hand, the city lights below blurring into streaks of gold and gray.
> "I know everything, Lucas. Your past, your obsession, the nights you followed her. I wonder what Vierrah would think if she knew."
His rival's message burned on the screen like a curse.
Lucas's breath trembled. He'd clawed his way out of that darkness, buried that old self under charm, wealth, and restraint. But now someone was peeling it all back — threatening the fragile peace he'd built.
"Jace," he said sharply, dialing his trusted man. "Find out who sent this. And when you do…"
He paused, his reflection meeting his own cold eyes in the window.
"…make sure he doesn't breathe again."
Jace's voice was steady. "Understood."
The call ended, leaving Lucas in the dim silence of his office — the silence of a man teetering between who he was and who he swore to become.
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A soft knock came at the door.
"Lucas?"
Her voice was light, but something in it cracked.
He turned as Vierrah stepped in, wearing a loose white shirt, her hair falling over her shoulders like waves of quiet innocence. She smiled faintly, pretending not to notice the tension hanging in the air.
"You didn't come to bed," she said.
He forced a smile. "Couldn't sleep."
Her eyes flicked to the phone on his desk, to the faint shadow of violence she could always sense in him. She'd seen it before — in the way he flinched when someone mentioned his past, in how his temper sometimes slipped through the cracks.
She knew.
She had known for a long time.
But she never asked.
Because she loved him enough to lie to herself.
"Is something wrong?" she asked softly.
Lucas turned away, rubbing the back of his neck. "Just business problems."
She stepped closer, her voice gentle. "Don't let it consume you again."
He froze. Again. The word hit like a knife. Did she know? Was she hinting? Or was it just a coincidence?
He forced a chuckle. "You worry too much."
Vierrah smiled, pretending to believe him. "Someone has to."
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When she left the room, her expression fell — her mask slipping the moment the door closed behind her.
She leaned against the wall, her pulse racing. She knew he'd ordered something terrible again. She could feel it — the air around him always changed when he crossed that line.
But she told herself, He'll stop. He loves me now. He promised.
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An hour passed.
Lucas's phone buzzed again.
"Boss," Jace's voice came through. "We found the guy. Orders?"
Lucas closed his eyes, every part of him shaking.
This was his moment — his final test.
"Kill him."
The words almost slipped out.
But then he saw Vierrah's face in his mind — her soft eyes, the quiet belief she had in him even when he didn't deserve it.
He exhaled sharply, his hand trembling. "No… wait."
A pause.
"Don't touch him."
"Boss?"
"I said don't touch him, Jace. Let him go."
He hung up before he could change his mind.
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From the hallway, Vierrah stood in the shadows, hearing everything. Her chest rose and fell slowly, relief mixing with sorrow.
She had pretended not to know the man he used to be — but she heard the man he was becoming.
When Lucas turned around, she stepped out of the dark, forcing a soft smile. "Everything okay?"
He nodded slowly, eyes tired but calm. "Yeah. Everything's… okay."
She walked up to him, placing a hand on his chest, feeling the rhythm of his heartbeat — heavy, real, human.
"You made him kill the man, didn't you?"
Lucas turned as if struck. For a heartbeat he considered lying, then saw the truth in her face and the way she didn't recoil. She already knew. The confession that would have been his burden had been lifted by her eyes.
He opened his mouth, closed it, swallowed. "I—" he began.
Vierrah didn't let him finish. "Don't explain. I'm not asking you to justify it. I'm telling you — this is the last time."
Those four words landed between them like an ultimatum. Not a plea. Not a request. A border she would not let him cross again.
Lucas felt a cold steadiness settle into his chest. He had rehearsed this moment in different versions—where he begged forgiveness, where he swore never to touch blood again, where he left to protect her by leaving. None of those felt like truth now.
"You understand what I'm saying?" Vierrah continued, voice controlled but threaded with something raw. "You think I don't know what you're capable of. I do. I saw it once and I chose to stay. But staying doesn't mean I will watch you become a monster again. If you kill to protect me, then you're protecting me from what? From life itself?"
He closed his eyes. A memory flashed — a shadowed street, a pair of shoes watching her from across the lane, the suffocating, sick pride he'd felt when he'd thought he'd kept her safe. That pride had tasted like ash.
"I already gave an order," Lucas said finally. His voice was quieter than he expected. "It's done."
Her jaw tightened. "And you told Jace to kill him. You don't get to do that and promise me anything by soft words."
She stepped closer until the air between them was small and charged. "This is the last time. No more killing. Not for threats, not for leverage, not for anything. You have to find a different way, Lucas. If you love me — if there is anything of the man I love left in you — you'll stop."
Lucas's laugh was brief and humorless. He looked at her as if trying to memorize her face: the curve of her cheek, the quiet ferocity in her eyes. "Alright," he said.
She exhaled as if expecting relief. But his next words cut the air with a different sort of honesty.
"Alright — this is the last time," he echoed slowly, each word deliberate. "But I won't promise that I won't kill again. Because if someone hurts you or threatens us again, I'll kill them."
For a beat the world went very small for Vierrah. She had expected abnegation, the surrender of the violent part of him. She had not expected this caveat — this dark oath that traded peace for perpetual vigilance.
"You can't live between promises and threats," she whispered, incredulous, wounded. "You can't give me the 'last time' and then keep the door open in case of some future wrong. That's not mercy, Lucas. That's permission."
He closed the distance, the movement not hostile but urgent. His hands found her shoulders and held them like an anchor. "I am not asking for permission to be a monster," he said. "I'm telling you what I am willing to do for you. I can try to change, Vierrah. I am trying. But I will not watch you suffer because I kept my hands clean. If someone reaches for you — if they threaten the life we are trying to build — I won't bargain with them. I won't let them decide whether we live."
Tears pricked at her eyes — not only for the man she loved but for the truth she'd always feared. Love had brought them here: to a fragile truce where she demanded restraint and he offered protection at almost any cost.
She thought of vows — spoken in a small chapel months ago, half drunk on hope — and weighed them against the metallic taste of his resolve now. The finality of her terms met the rawness of his instinct.
"Then choose," she said at last, voice broken but steady. "Choose me, Lucas. Not as a reason to kill, but as a reason to be better. If you cannot promise that, then you must promise me something else: that you'll walk away first. That you'll let me go before you turn into the thing you fear."
He swallowed, the decision folding open in his chest like a raw wound. The man who had given orders to silence threats by any means was still there, but another man — the one who had held Vierrah in the dark and vowed differently — was trying to be louder.
Lucas met her eyes, the rain tapping the glass behind them like a metronome of fate. "I can't promise I'll never kill again," he said, softer this time. "But I can promise I'll try — and I won't let you die because I wanted to be in the right."
Vierrah let out a shuddering breath. It wasn't a victory, but it wasn't surrender either. It was an uneasy armistice — a fragile hope they would both have to guard.
They stood like that for a long time, the storm outside finally breaking into something quieter. In the hush that followed, both felt the precariousness of what they'd become: lovers bound by secrets, by promises, and by the unspoken knowledge that the next threat could break them — or force them to become something they'd never intended.
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