Blood and Roses (Tainted Hearts 3.5)

I knew this would be the last time.

“I don’t want to let you go, Angel. I…can’t. Fuck, I just can’t…I can’t…live…I can’t…breathe,” I cried into her neck. “This is all…my fault…I shouldn’t…have left you. I shouldn’t have…all…my fault. I…am sorry…so…so sorry…please…come back.”

I only got silence in response.

From now on, I would never hear her voice. No matter how loud I would call for Maria, I would only get silence.

I had forced fate. And this was the outcome.

Angels don’t belong in this world…in my world.

Chapter 25

Lyov

They buried my Angel a week ago. It had been seven days. Seven. Fucking. Days since I last held my Maria.

She now laid in the dark, cold ground, far, far away from me. I didn’t attend the funeral. I was hidden deep in the trees and then walked away when they lowered her casket to the ground. My feet took me nowhere; I just walked mindlessly around in a world that my Angel no longer breathed in.

Our princess was buried beside her, too. I lost four people that night. I lost my friend. I lost my wife. I lost my daughter. And I lost my son.

Alessio hadn’t a spoken a word since that night, when Lena had pulled him from under the bed. He wouldn’t talk. He wouldn’t react to anything. He was just a living corpse. Like me. Alive yet dead inside. Breathing, yet just surviving…not living.

I almost wished I’d died that night. Maybe the pain would be easier. Maybe then, I would be with my Angel. Maybe then, we could have our happy ending. Maybe then, our love wouldn’t be so broken and empty.

My thoughts were interrupted by a knock on my door. Through the darkness, I watched as Lena walked inside without waiting for my reply. She knew there would be no response. My doors had remained closed for the last seven days. Nobody was allowed in. I guessed I wallowed in self-pity and dreamed of days when my Angel was still alive. I dreamed of the days when I would wake up beside her and see those vivid blue eyes staring into me. Her beautiful smile and her infectious laughter. I dreamed of when my Angel was still alive and she would hold me in her embrace.

Except, no matter how much I would dream of these beautiful moments, I would always wake up into this nightmare.

Even with the light off and the room basked with darkness, Lena found her way to my bed. She sat down on the edge. I closed my eyes, refusing to acknowledge her presence.

I didn’t want to talk. There was no point. What was there left to say?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

“You didn’t eat,” Lena said quietly. I didn’t respond. She let out a sigh, and I could almost feel her shoulders drooping.

“I want to be alone,” I finally said after a few minutes of silence.

“I want to be alone too, but we can’t always have what we want, right?” Her voice sounded so empty, so unlike the old Lena I once knew. She was broken too. But I chose to ignore the fact that she lost her love too. I couldn’t handle thinking about her hurting while I was so deep in pain.

My eyes snapped open, and I glared at her through the darkness. “What the fuck do you want?” I barely even recognized my voice. It was rough and gravelly after days of not speaking. It sounded…raw and pained.

“I don’t want anything, Lyov. I am just here to give you something.”

I waited, but finally she moved. My fist tightened when she touched my hand. Gently, she opened my clenched fingers and then laid something cold in the middle of my palm. She closed my fingers around it again. “This belongs to you.”

With that, Lena got up and left the room.

Silence fell upon me again. I shifted around in the bed and turned on the lamp. I opened my palm, and in the middle, I found a ring.

Maria’s wedding band.

Lena must have kept it when…

I shook my head, refusing to think of it. My eyes burned with unshed tears as I stared at my Angel’s ring, the same one that she never took off. The same one that had my name engraved on the inside of it.

I looked down at my left hand, where my wedding band was still present. The word Angel was engraved on the inside of it. Matching rings for my wife and me. She had my name, and I had hers…Angel.

I choked back a sob and fisted her wedding band, so tight that my knuckles turned white and my fingers started to hurt. Closing my eyes, I laid against the headboard. My head hurt. And my heart…the ache never disappeared, not since the night I found Maria in a pool of her blood.

Darkness swallowed me, and I fell into another bottomless pit. The next time I woke up, the ring was still held tightly in my fist. I opened my fingers and found it hard to breathe. Fuck. I hated this. I hated being weak. I hated this…this feeling of helplessness and emptiness.