Page 134 of Chains of Recompense
He doesn’t want a life built on lies, and that’s all this would be to him.
I’ve lived this once already. I know how it ends.
Only this time, I’m certain if I walk away again, it will be for good.
The knowledge is enough to crush me. I don’t know if I’m strong enough to do it a second time. To hide something so monumental.
But I’m not ready to tell him yet, either. Not with how we’ve left things.
I need time to think, to decide just what the hell I’m doing.
34
AISLING
The house has learned how to be quiet—not the comfortable kind, not the peaceful, lived-in hush that settles in at night. This silence is sharp, deliberate.
Every room feels like it’s holding something back, like the walls themselves are watching us pass each other without touching.
Raf barely looks at me anymore.
If we’re in the same room, his attention slides away like water off glass. He’s gone early most mornings, sometimes before dawn, and hasn’t returned until long after I’m asleep.
When he does crawl into bed beside me, he smells faintly of gun oil and rain and cold air, like he’s been living on the edge of the city instead of in this house with me.
I know the conflict with the Yakuza is reaching its breaking point. I know things are moving fast behind the scenes.
Meetings I’m not invited to.
Plans I’m not meant to hear.
Still, I know avoidance when I feel it.
Sleeping beside him is the worst part.
He still sleeps in the bed.
He didn’t exile himself again, not fully after that first night. But the space between us feels wider than the Atlantic.
He lies with his back to me, never turning toward me, never reaching for me in the dark the way he used to. I lie awake listening to his breathing, memorizing the rhythm like I’m afraid it’ll disappear forever.
Every time I move, I wonder if he feels the way my body has changed. If he can sense the fragile, dangerous secret growing quietly inside me.
The nausea comes and goes in waves, worse in the mornings, easier to hide when he isn’t here.
Maybe that’s for the best. I still haven’t decided what to do, how I can possibly move forward with him, knowing how he feels about me—yet I’m unable to walk away, knowing just how deeply it would betray him not to say anything.
I feel frozen with doubt and indecision, racked with the thought of making the wrong choice.
And the solid wall of ice between us isn’t helping my impossible emotional state.
We speak only when necessary—logistics, security updates, neutral ground. Never so much as a “How was your day?”
It hurts more than the shouting did. At least anger meant I still mattered.
On the fourth day, I wake from a shallow, restless sleep with my heart racing.
Golden sunlight filters through the window, telling me without looking at the time that I’ve slept in once again. Raf’s side of the bed is long since empty.
