-Reed.
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It has already been two weeks. TWO FUCKING WEEKS.
And none of this made any sense to me.
I stared at my phone like it owed me rent. A deadbeat tenant sitting smug in my palm. There were texts, sure. A call or two. Lucien asking if I had eaten, if I'm sleeping well—the way you'd check on a goldfish you keep forgetting to feed but refuse to flush out of guilt. And so my responses came with all the warmth of a damp napkin: "yeah." "fine." "Alive."
But inside?
It was the kind of silence that screams.
Lucien's absence wasn't just distance. It carved a canyon through my chest and then whistled through it, haunting like wind over a bottle's mouth. I started spiraling. Hardcore. The kind of spiraling that turns the music app recommendations into personalized attacks.
Maybe he was bored. Maybe the novelty wore off. Maybe the kiss—the sex—the messy, limb-tangled night of his possessive whisper and my wrecked moan—meant nothing. Maybe it was just a high-tier HR tactic. Management strategy with extra steps. An employee retention plan for emotionally unstable freelancers.
I knew I was being dramatic. But that's the thing about spirals—you know you're doing it and still choose the express lane.
And Margo? Useless. Tighter-lipped than a vault in a monastery. Every attempt at prying got me the same neutral smile and some new form of verbal tai chi. "He's very busy." "Operations require discretion." "I can pass along a message."
A message. Yeah. Sure. Like I hadn't already sent about twenty of those in lowercase despair.
Last night, I cracked. Grabbed my coat. Marched to his rented apartment—the one I was allowed to know about. The one close to mine because "I like to keep an eye on my money," he'd once said. Cute. Creepy. Classic Lucien.
I stood at the door, knocked. Waited. Knocked again. Nothing. Not a sound. Not even a rustle of guilt behind expensive curtains.
Maybe he wasn't there. Maybe he was. Maybe he was standing silently behind the door, watching me on a camera, deciding whether or not I was worth opening up for.
I didn't knock a third time. I'm dramatic, not desperate.
So I walked back down the stairs, each step heavier than the last, feeling like I'd just tried to visit a ghost. One that used to laugh at my jokes, kiss like he meant it, and once told me I was his favorite fuck-up.
And still, like the idiot I am, I keep hoping he'll text again.
Because despite everything, some part of me still thinks he will.
I got back home and threw my keys into the bowl by the door with all the grace of a man abandoning hope. The sound echoed in the silence like a punchline to a joke no one asked for.
My apartment still smelled faintly like the vanilla candle I lit last night in a fit of faux self-care. It had burnt out halfway, probably offended I tried to fix my soul with $4.99 wax and denial.
The sink was full of dishes. Not from actual cooking—let's not get delusional—but from days of microwave therapy and cereal existentialism. I sighed, rolled up my sleeves, and grabbed the sponge like I was prepping for battle.
I needed noise. Something to drown out the looping replay of maybe he was never coming back.
So, I hit play. Over You by Ingrid Michaelson. Yeah. Real subtle. My taste in music is about as self-preservational as leaving the door open during a hurricane.
The opening chords trickled through the air like soft raindrops on glass, and I immediately regretted everything. My chest ached on cue.
"Over, I'm so over you The way that you look In a 3-piece suit…"
I paused. My lips curled into a bitter smile.
"Over, I'm so over you
The way that you held me
Like nobody else would…"
I scrubbed harder. The plate in my hand squeaked from pressure. The sponge was foaming in protest. I imagined his hands. His grip. The way he'd held me that night like he was afraid I'd vanish. As if he were the one desperate to stay.
I wanted to believe I was over it. Over him. But the truth was...
"Maybe if I tell myself enough
Maybe if I do
I'll get over you…"
Yeah. That was the part that gutted me every time. Like convincing yourself raw denial counted as closure.
The music swelled again. That breathless plea of a chorus.
"Maybe if I tell myself enough Maybe if I do I'll get all over— You..."
I stopped. Just stood there.
Dripping hands. Foam on my knuckles. Chest tight in a way I couldn't quite name.
Because I wasn't just haunted by the thought of him being gone.
I was haunted by the idea that maybe I was the only one falling. That maybe Lucien was already over me. And that I was just... circling.
"I'm falling around you..."
My vision blurred for a second, and I didn't know if it was the steam or just the storm behind my eyes. I shut off the tap. Pressed my wet fingers to my face.
"I'm fine," I whispered.
Because that's what you say, right? Even when you're lying. Especially when you're lying.
"Enough of this shit."
The words came out like a hiss between my teeth, teeth gritted so hard my jaw throbbed. I grabbed my phone off the counter, fingers wet from dish soap and rage. Suds clung to the screen like they wanted to stop me. Cowards.
I unlocked it. Lucien's name sat at the top of my recent calls like a ghost too smug to haunt properly.
I hit dial. The ringing felt like knives dragging against a steel pan. "Please, pick up…" I whispered to myself, shame coating the words like oil on water.
And then— "Heyy."
His voice. Casual. Almost sleepy. My chest clenched like a vice wrapped in velvet. I hated that it still did something to me.
"If you don't meet me this moment," I snapped, "I swear to god I'll go to the police and expose everything about you."
There was silence. Then, "Reed, listen—"
"No." I cut him off with a crack in my voice I couldn't hide. "This is enough. If you aren't man enough to give me closure, then I'll get it myself. You don't get to act all possessive one moment, then throw me to the side the next. I'm not your emotional fidget toy."
The tears came faster than I could blink them away. Of course they did. Always the wrong time. Always ruining the drama.
"I swear on your life it's not what you think."
"What life, Lucien?" I spat. "You built your whole damn existence on smoke and mirrors. And I— I've been going out of my mind here trying to make sense. Trying to understand. But you're just toying with me. Was this your plan all along?"
I wanted silence. I wanted him to be speechless so I could hang up with pride.
But instead he said, "I'll be down your apartment building in an hour. I can't come up. And you can't come down either."
I blinked. "What?"
"You can see me through the window in your bedroom," he continued. "Just for a couple of minutes. We can talk on the phone. That's what I can offer right now. But you have to promise me you'll do as I ask you."
My lips parted in disbelief. It was so specific. So cloak-and-dagger. It reeked of secrets. It reeked of him.
I scoffed. "You want me to stare at you through a goddamn window? What is this, Rear Window mafia edition?"
"Please," he whispered, voice breaking into something fragile. "Just push through with me. Just this one time. I promise I'll make it up to you."
And fuck. That "I promise I'll make it up to you"— He said it like it hurt him to say it. Like it meant something. And worst of all, I believed him.
God help me, I believed him.
"Fine," I said, wiping my cheeks with the back of my wrist. "I'll be waiting."
I didn't wait for a reply. Just hung up.
The silence that followed felt louder than anything he could've said.
My phone rang exactly fifty-four minutes later. Of course it did. Because Lucien didn't do messy unless he had to. And even then, he'd do it in pressed slacks and with Latin etymology.
The screen lit up with his name—no emoji, no photo, just Lucien. I didn't even let it get past the first ring.
"Yeah?" I answered, tone flat, but the kind of flat that hides a wildfire underneath. The kind of flat that dares him to say something stupid.
"It's time," he said. "You can look now."
His voice—it wasn't soft, not exactly. It was controlled, the kind of calm people use when everything inside them is on fire. It threaded into my ear with too much weight, curling down my spine before I could build any armor.
"One sec," I replied. "Getting something from the kitchen."
A lie.
I didn't need anything from the kitchen.
What I needed was answers. Something solid. So I hit mute. Jammed the phone into my hoodie pocket. And ran.
My heart was already ahead of me, pounding up into my throat as I tore down the stairs like gravity owed me a favor. I didn't even wait for the elevator—couldn't stand the idea of standing still in that cramped, mirrored box with nothing but my reflection and panic for company.
Fuck the window.
Fuck his instructions.
Fuck playing docile to a man who dared make me feel like I was the crazy one.
I burst out the lobby doors and into the night, not caring how loud the exit push bar slammed behind me. Not caring if any neighbor saw.
And then I saw him.
Under a flickering streetlight like some noir painting come to life, Lucien leaned against his car as if the world hadn't cracked open two weeks ago. Hood drawn up. Hands buried in his pockets. That posture—still proud, still curated—like he didn't know how to be anything else.
He wasn't smoking. He didn't fidget. He just stood there, eerily still, as though vanishing was just one breath away.
For a second, he didn't move. Didn't glance toward the building. Maybe he thought I'd obeyed. That I was upstairs behind glass like a well-behaved little secret, watching him from the safety of curtains and elevation.
But I wasn't playing spectator tonight.
And when his gaze finally shifted—when our eyes locked across the shadow-drenched pavement—he turned to leave. No hesitation. No drama. Just pivoted like a man retreating from something he couldn't afford to want anymore.
My chest tightened. Rage flared. No. Absolutely not.
I charged forward without thinking, closing the distance between us in long, heated strides. Reached out. Grabbed the back of his hoodie—clenched the fabric in my fist like I could anchor the truth to this moment. I yanked him back, not gently. Like a school kid caught mid-fight. Like a memory trying to escape before it was seen.
Lucien stumbled, winced. His breath hitched through grit teeth as I spun him around, and that's when I saw it.
Everything stopped.
"Lucien…" I breathed, but it came out wrong—too soft, too human. Like the syllables themselves didn't know whether they were meant to accuse or console.
He didn't lift his head. Just shifted, barely, like the tension in his spine was the only thing holding him together. His hoodie had slipped slightly off one shoulder in the scuffle, revealing a smear of bruising along his collarbone—faint, but unmistakable. I kept my hand fisted in the fabric at his back, unsure if I was holding him in place or anchoring myself from falling.
The streetlight above us flickered again, casting brief, merciless light over his face. That's when the bruises truly came into view—shadows sculpted by violence. A sickly yellow pooled beneath one eye, the bruise arcing downward like it had been dealt with calculation, not impulse. His jaw, once impossibly smooth and proud, now carried a deep blue-green stain that looked like it hurt to wear. His lip was split at the corner.
And still—still—he didn't meet my gaze.
"Look at me," I said, barely above a whisper, not demanding so much as pleading.
Nothing.
"Lucien," I said again, more breath than voice now, like the name itself might dissolve if I pressed too hard. My grip loosened against the back of his hoodie, fingertips brushing against his spine, tentative and trembling, not out of fear—but because I no longer knew how to touch him without making it worse.
He blinked slowly, as if trying to calculate whether eye contact would collapse him entirely.
When his eyes finally rose to mine, it was like a house with all the lights turned off. The same eyes that once watched me with hidden amusement, with veiled affection, with the kind of hunger that made me feel real—now held nothing but exhaustion. And something colder than pain. Shame.
I stepped back half a pace, suddenly feeling like I'd barged into a secret I wasn't meant to know.
My throat burned. My chest was too tight. All that anger, all those carefully sharpened accusations I came sprinting down the stairs with, had nowhere left to go. They were useless now. Like trying to start a fire with soaked matches.
So instead, I said the only thing that made it through the static.
"Tell me the truth. Please."
Lucien exhaled slowly, as though he'd been holding his breath this whole time. He closed his eyes for just a second, and when they opened again, I saw it.
Not power. Not control. Just... regret.
He looked away first.
And suddenly I wasn't sure if the worst part was seeing him broken—or realizing he thought he deserved to be.
"It was just a street fight," he said quickly, too quickly, like the lie had been waiting on his tongue before I even pulled him back. "Some people cornered me— and—"
I barked a laugh, loud and ugly and empty of humor. "You just don't want to stop lying to me, do you? Would it kill you—genuinely kill you—to just say the truth? Once. Just once. That's all I'm asking for."
His jaw tightened. "Please, Reed, don't start. If I'd known you'd do that, I wouldn't have shown up."
"Start?" I repeated, my voice climbing in pitch, my chest hollowing like something caved in. "Oh, start? You think this is the start? This isn't chapter one, Lucien, or whoever the fuck you're being today. This is the finale. This is a curtain call. You don't trust me. You never did. You want me to fall for your prince act, your soft sweaters and curated smiles, then leave me on read when shit gets too real?"
He stared. Silent.
I didn't stop. Couldn't.
"You don't trust me with anything," I hissed, and my voice cracked so hard I hated myself for it. "You said you cared. Then vanished. You think texting me from your little Bond villain lair makes you noble? It makes you a coward."
His silence wasn't passive—it was worse. It was deliberate. Like he was letting me burn through everything just to see what was left.
"Fine," I said, throwing my arms out, the wind catching in my hoodie like the universe needed a dramatic backdrop. "You don't owe me softness. I get it. Let's keep this professional, whatever the fuck that means. No more gentle touches. No more secrets either. I beg you—just respect me enough to keep your distance."
Lucien opened his mouth.
Then closed it.
And I saw it—the flicker of something behind his eyes. Not guilt. Not pity. Surrender, maybe.
I turned slightly, half-convinced I could end this if I just walked away.
"My name is Rowan."
I stopped.
Like something had yanked a cable in my chest.
I blinked. Once. Twice. The words didn't compute.
"…Rowan?" I repeated, because sometimes you need to say a lie twice to feel the shape of it.
"I'm not a prince," he said, voice suddenly low, almost reverent in its unraveling. "I've never been one. I was pulled into this because I looked good on magazine covers. I could smile on cue, sign documents, keep secrets. I didn't even know what I was signing for the first two years—I was just told to be agreeable. I became useful. So they kept me. Groomed me. Branded me."
He exhaled, shaking his head, hoodie shadowing his expression but not enough to hide how wrecked he looked beneath the lamplight.
"And now I run things," he said. "For people who keep knives behind every hello. I've helped move millions through fake operations. I've sold illusions to governments, to banks. I created identities. Buried names. Rewired lives. And you—Reed—you weren't supposed to be involved. Not like this."
His voice cracked, something raw threading through the base of it.
"But you got in. And I couldn't get you out."
The air between us stretched, taut and thin, and even the lamppost above us flickered like it wasn't sure whether to stay lit or just give up altogether.
Rowan—Lucien—whatever his name had been when we first met—stood under that broken halo of light like someone finally laying contraband out in the open, bare and breathless.
I didn't move. Couldn't.
The wind nudged the corner of my hoodie like a nudge from the universe, but I stayed frozen. I could feel my heart pounding in my ribs like it was looking for a way out. My throat tasted like metal. Like disappointment. Like burnt edges of something that had almost become beautiful.
I let out a breath, half-sigh, half-scoff. "You told me I was helping you protect your money," I murmured, my voice quieter now, fraying around the edges. "You said you wanted to keep it from your family. What I didn't realize is that the 'family' was the kind that owns guns, not yachts."
I took a slow step back, blinking hard, like maybe the truth could be recalibrated if I just changed the angle. "And now I find out your name's not even Lucien? It's Rowan? That's the twist?" I gave a humorless laugh that didn't reach my eyes. "What was that—assigned in your villain origin story? Did they pick it out of a fantasy novel or give it to you in the alley behind your first forged contract?"
He didn't answer. He didn't have to. The weight in his posture said enough. He just stood there, hands still buried in his pockets, bleeding from more than just his mouth now. And none of it was a metaphor anymore.
I threw my arms up, frustration breaking through my grief like glass underfoot. "So what now? I've been unknowingly working for a whole goddamn gangster syndicate? Was this the plan? Dress it up in consulting and soft cashmere and hope I won't notice the bodies under the floorboards?"
My eyes stung. I hated it. Hated that the heat behind my eyes gave me away.
"Is that why you were always so scared I'd run away?" I said, quieter now, voice trembling as I looked directly at him. "Not because I'd break your stupid royal heart, but because they'd kill you if I disappeared?"
"No," he said, and his voice cracked mid-breath, quiet and fractured. "I wasn't afraid they'd kill me. I was afraid you'd leave me. Not the scheme. Me."
The silence that followed stretched too long. I stood there, blinking like my body was trying to catch up with what my mind had just heard.
And then I laughed.
A small, brittle sound that tasted like dust in my throat. It came out thin, like my voice had dried up on the way out.
"Same damn thing now, isn't it?"
My chest rose—once, then twice. I held still, trying not to shake, not to let anything spill. I wasn't sure if I was holding in rage or heartbreak anymore, but whatever it was burned through my ribs.
"You don't get to say it didn't matter," I said, the words sharp but steady. "You knew. You knew about my grandmother. You knew I was vulnerable. You knew I had no one. Maybe you didn't map it out on a whiteboard, but you let it happen. You let me walk in blind, smiling, stupid—and now I've got blood on my hands, and I don't even know whose."
He didn't answer. His mouth moved, but I raised a hand before he got the chance.
"Don't."
That shut him up. For once.
"I can't even hate you for it," I said, quieter now. "And that makes it worse. I wish I could. I really do. But I walked in with my eyes wide open. I said yes to the money. Yes to the office with no files. Yes to the silk lies and that ridiculous castle tea. I said yes to the emotionally constipated prince with the tragic mouth and too many secrets."
The breath I let out tasted bitter. Like betrayal left too long in the sun.
"But you—" I looked at him, really looked. "You looked at me and decided I was disposable. You studied me like a document, stamped me, categorized me, and filed me away."
My voice had thinned again. Not shaky—tight. Pulled taut like wire.
"And then, somewhere along the line, you decided I wasn't disposable anymore. And you didn't tell me. You just changed the rules mid-game and let me think I was still playing the same one."
Lucien—Rowan—watched me, his eyes glassy, unreadable. His jaw had locked.
I shook my head and stepped back. One slow step, like pulling away from a ledge.
"Please…" I said, softly, the word almost falling apart in my mouth. "Just respect my wishes, okay?"
Another step.
"Let's keep it professional—whatever the fuck that means to you. I'm tired of pretending it ever was anything else."
He didn't speak. Didn't move. Just stood there under the flickering lamplight, looking more like a ruined memory than a man.
And I turned. I walked back toward the building without another word. My hand found the door. The air behind me stayed still.
I didn't look back. Didn't need to.
Because I could feel it—that moment freezing in place. Him, rooted there. Me, already disappearing.
And just like that, I left Lucien—or Rowan, or whoever the hell he truly was—alone in the street, standing in the glow of a light that couldn't decide if it wanted to stay on or go dark.
Just like him.