Chapter 122: The end?

The estate was far too quiet when Kian stepped through the front doors of the mansion.

It was a suffocating, heavy kind of silence, the kind that settled into the corners of a room after something vital had been torn out of It.

He didn’t bother turning on the lights in the foyer.

The dim glow of the evening sky leaked through the tall windows, casting long, crooked shadows across the polished floor.

He didn’t take off his coat. He didn’t drop his keys. He just stood near the entryway, his hands hanging limp at his sides, breathing in the cold air.

His mind felt like a blank slate, entirely empty, yet his chest throbbed with a hollow, physical ache.

It was a pressure so intense it made it hard to draw a complete breath.

It didn’t make any sense.

Isabella was gone.

She had boarded the jet. She had chosen to walk away from him, to leave him behind with the mess of his own making, and by all logical metrics, he should have felt anger.

He should have felt the cold, calculating fury that usually took over whenever things slipped out of his control.

Instead, he felt like he was bleeding out from an invisible wound. His heart hammered against his ribs with a panicked, frantic rhythm, as if his body recognized a tragedy that his mind couldn’t quite wrap itself around.

It was a familiar terror, deep and bone-deep, like waking up from a nightmare only to realize you were still trapped inside it.

He took a slow, heavy step forward, his shoes dragging against the hardwood.

He didn’t go toward his office. He didn’t go to the bar. His feet carried him automatically up the grand staircase, moving on instinct alone.

Every step felt heavier than the last. When he reached the upper hallway, he stopped outside the door to the primary bedroom, the room he had shared with Isabella before everything had turned to ash.

The door was slightly ajar. He pushed it open.

The room smelled faintly of her. It was a soft, clean scent, lingering near the vanity and the edges of the heavy drapes.

Kian crossed the threshold like a trespasser in his own home. He walked over to the closet, pushing past his own dark suits until his fingers brushed against a soft, silk robe left hanging on the rack.

His hand tightened around the fabric. He pulled it closer, burying his face into the material, breathing in deeply.

’Why does it hurt this much?’

The thought echoed in his head, raw and confusing.

He had lost her today, yes, but this pain felt older. It felt ancient. It felt like an open sore that had been festering for years, buried beneath layers of skin and bone, suddenly ripped open to the cold air.

"Kian?"

The voice broke through the dark.

Alice was standing in the doorway of the bedroom. She wore a silk nightgown, her hair falling over her shoulders, her silhouette framed by the hall light. She looked at him with a mixture of caution and a strange, desperate hope.

For weeks, she had watched him fall apart over a woman she despised, pretending to go along with his excuse and forcing herself to mourn what she thought they almost had.

But now Isabella was gone, even though she wasn’t dead like Alice wanted. But she was still gone.

The plane had taken off, the ties were cut, and in Alice’s mind, the long, terrible fever had finally broken.

She took a slow step into the room, her bare feet making no sound against the rug. "I heard you come in," she said softly, her voice missing its usual sharp edge. "You didn’t answer your phone."

Kian didn’t move. He kept his face buried in the fabric of Isabella’s robe, his shoulders rigid.

Alice walked up behind him. She hesitated for a fraction of a second before reaching out, placing a hand gently against his back.

"It’s over, Kian," she murmured, leaning her head against his shoulder. "She’s gone. She chose to leave. You don’t have to keep destroying yourself over her anymore. We can finally..."

She didn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t need to.

Kian felt the touch of her hand, the warmth of her body pressing against his, and a sudden, violent wave of nausea washed over him.

It wasn’t just distaste; it was a physical rejection, an instinctive recoil so powerful it made his skin crawl.

When he closed his eyes, he didn’t see Alice. He felt a phantom memory, a pair of small, soft hands gripping his lapels, the faint sound of a woman crying, the scent of lavender and rain.

He shoved Alice away.

It wasn’t a violent push, but it was abrupt enough to send her stumbling back two steps.

She gasped, her hands flying to her chest as she stared at him, her eyes wide with shock and hurt.

"Don’t touch me," Kian said. His voice was raspy, stripped of all warmth, sounding like gravel grinding together.

"Kian..." Alice whispered, her lip trembling. "I was just trying to—"

"I need a drink," he interrupted, refusing to look at her. He dropped the silk robe, letting it pool onto the floor, and brushed past her without a second glance.

Alice stood alone in the dark bedroom, watching his tall figure retreat down the hallway.

The realization hit her like a splash of ice water: even with Isabella thousands of miles away, even with Isabella erased from his daily life, she was still losing him to a shadow.

Downstairs, Kian didn’t go to the liquor cabinet.

He bypassed the living room entirely, heading straight for the master suite on the ground floor, the one with the massive adjoining bathroom he rarely used.

He didn’t turn on the overhead lights. He walked in the gloom, reaching over to turn the heavy brass knobs of the bathtub.

Water roared out of the spout, splashing against the porcelain. He didn’t check the temperature.

He didn’t care if it was freezing or scalding.

He grabbed a crystal decanter of whiskey from the side table, uncorked it with his teeth, and took three long, burning swallows straight from the bottle.

The alcohol hit his empty stomach like liquid fire, but it didn’t dull the ache in his chest. It only made his head swim, blurring the edges of the dark room.

He stood over the tub as it filled, watching the water rise.

He felt completely hollowed out.

The desperation that had driven him for weeks, the begging, the frantic calls, the endless tracking had burned itself down to pure ash.

He was tired. Tired of the noise in his head, tired of the suffocating weight in his lungs, tired of the phantom grief that wouldn’t let him breathe.

He stepped Into the tub fully clothed.

The water soaked through his trousers and his heavy wool coat instantly, dragging him down.

He sat down in the deep basin, letting the water rise past his waist, past his chest. He took another long swig from the bottle, dropped it onto the tile floor where it shattered, and then he leaned his head back against the rim.

He closed his eyes.

Slowly, deliberately, Kian slid downward.