Page 115 of Chasing Ruin
Fuck. I didn’t even realize how late it was.
“I’m… I’m done. I’ll go to bed,” she says flatly. Like the night wrung her dry.
She blinks slowly, dazed. I can’t tell if it’s the conversation or the wine catching up to her. Maybe both.
I nod, pushing myself up on legs that don’t feel entirely steady. “Yeah, I’ll just set the alarm and head out.”
No response. No acknowledgment. She doesn’t even look at me. Doesn’t blink. Doesn’t even noticeably breathe. Like she’s already somewhere else.
She gathers the empty wine glasses and carries them to the sink, setting them down with quiet precision. Then she turnsand walks away. No glance back as she simply disappears into the bedroom.
I stand there for a second too long, bracing myself against the silence she leaves behind.
Too heavy. Too loud.
I shouldn’t have let it go this far. Shouldn’t have stretched her this thin.
Muttering a quiet curse, I force myself to move. To leave. Back to my office. Back to the pathetic excuse of a bed on the couch.
My mind won’t shut up. It keeps circling every word she said tonight. Each one sounds heavier now. Like they cost her something just to speak. Hell, she was barely holding it together by the end, and I kept pushing.
With everything going on—with the war, the fear, the chaos—I doubt she has anything left in her to even dissect my stupid feelings, let alone respond to them.
Hell, I’m probably just making it worse. Confusing her. Burdening her.
‘You all may have had two years to adjust to it. But this is all very sudden to me, Ruin.’
Yeah, no shit. Charlotte doesn’t need this. She sure as fuck doesn’t need me. I shouldn’t have pushed. Should’ve just let her breathe.
All she’s trying to do is survive this mess, and get through whatever nightmare this club has become.
And my feelings? They don’t matter in the grand scheme of things.
It’s close to four in the morning by the time my thoughts finally quiet down enough for sleep to take me.
And even then, the last thing that lingers isn’t hope. It’s the quiet, hollow understanding that love—no matter how real it feels—doesn’t always arrive when it’s wanted.
And sometimes, it comes far too late to mean anything at all.
THIRTY-SIX
Charlotte
I’ve felt a lot of things when it comes to Ruin.
At fourteen, it had been nothing more than a faint awareness of the man who stood closest to my brother. A brother who had dismissed my existence within a day of me stepping into that house Savage dragged me to.
In those first few months, I was always at Ruin’s place. Not because of him. Not even for Mama Deb. But for Dane. Because wherever Ruin was, Dane followed.
Slowly, that awareness turned into something uglier. Jealousy.
Dane—no, Wolf—was more of a brother to him than he ever was to me.
As the months passed, I started trailing after the pair. To the clubhouse. Their hangouts. Even their high school graduation party.
I inserted myself wherever I could. Every second of it fed that envy—sharp and relentless—until it started to twist into resentment toward Ruin. For having something I couldn’t.
I don’t think I ever noticed when it changed. When the lines blurred, and my feelings started to distort.
