Cherry / Lilith's POV
For a moment, I forgot how to breathe.
Because of him.
The man who lured me in, the man who taught me love, pain, anticipation and grief all at once, the father of my child.
Marco.
Alive. Bound. Bleeding. Looking at me like I was the only thing in the room that still made sense.
And I hated him for that.
I hated that his eyes still searched for me the same way they used to, like I was home. Like I was the answer to something he had never been able to name.
I had spent years training myself not to remember that look.
Years teaching myself that the man who once held me like I was everything had also been the man who walked away like I was nothing.
And yet here he was.
And my heart… my heart did something traitorous.
It broke all over again.
It started beating again, the way it used to beat when I was nineteen, when I met him for the first time.
"You don't get to look at me like that," I said.
My voice didn't shake. I didn't let it.
