Y/n's pov:
I wasn't shocked when I heard it. Maybe I should have been, maybe most people would be, but I wasn't. It felt like my body had already known, already been preparing me for this. The breathlessness, the strange aches, the way I'd sometimes feel my heart flutter and then slow like it was tired of trying—these signs were never quiet. I just kept pushing them away, telling myself I was fine. That I had to be. So when the words "rare heart disease, stage 2" were finally said out loud, it wasn't the words that broke me. It was the silence after. It was the way Zayn looked at me, so full of grief that he couldn't even speak. That's what made everything inside me tremble.
But more than fear of the disease, more than fear of pain or the hospital stays ahead, what truly terrified me was the idea of dying unloved. Not unliked. Not alone. Unloved. That word rings differently in my ears now. I could die tomorrow, and I don't know if anyone would really ache for me. Not the way I secretly hoped someone would. Sylus… why didn't he chose not to chase me not to stand for a second to look back at me—why....I can't be with you even if it's hurt I can't let you go.
Now, I'm here in this cold room with pale walls, facing something that could take everything from me—and all I can think is, Did I ever really matter to someone? I'm scared of closing my eyes one day and never opening them again. I'm scared of not being remembered with love, only as a name on a file. Zayn cares, I can see it in his eyes, but i know that pity, he pity me how miserable I look, how tired I look, h-how pathetic I look.
I press my hand to my chest and feel it beat—slow, tired, uneven. And I whisper to myself, Just once, before it stops… let me be loved right. Not possessed. Not mourned. Just… held. Wanted. Chosen.
Sylus pov:
I buried my hands in my hair, leaning back into the cold leather of my office chair. The silence was deafening, the kind that only exists when the world outside still breathes but something inside you doesn't. The lights in my office flickered against the polished floors, casting long shadows across the wall. Everything in this room was a reflection of me—sharp edges, heavy silence, and a hunger for control.
But she was the one thing I never truly had control over.
Y/N.
The name itself was a wound. And it bled every time I heard it, every time I remembered how she looked at me that day… with anger, not fear. With disappointment, not love. I watched her stand next to Zayn like he was....he was god, like he was the calm after the storm, and I—what was I? The storm itself. The ruin. The mistake she never said aloud, but felt every time we spoke.
The more I tried to focus on my work, the more I failed. My men noticed. They didn't say anything—no one in Onychinus dared to—but they felt it. I saw it in the way they flinched when I walked in, in the way the silence stretched longer than usual during briefings.
I was slipping.
This wasn't supposed to happen.
I've built empires from ashes. I've turned betrayal into opportunity. I've buried enemies with my bare hands. But that girl… she's undoing me.
I saw her with him. Zayn. Of all people. Of all fucking people. Of course it was him. That perfect-suit, perfect-word, perfect-timing bastard.
The man who used to smile from the corner of the classroom, who always had a little too much charm for his own good. I remembered his name from back then, a footnote in our story. I never imagined he'd be the one standing next to her years later, drinking coffee with her like she didn't just come from hell.
And she smiled.
That destroyed me.
You think a man like me is built to love? No. I was built to own, to command, to conquer. But when it came to her, I wanted to deserve it. I wanted her to choose me—not out of fear, not out of obligation—but out of something real. Something warm. Something I didn't know how to hold onto.
But now she's giving that smile, that quiet, sacred smile to someone else.
Zayn doesn't know what she looks like crying behind a locked door. He doesn't know how she sounds when she breaks—but I do. And I held her in pieces. I've seen her raw and screaming and silent. I know what it took for her to be whole again.
And now she just gives it away?
To him?
I slammed my fist against the desk. Papers scattered, one of the folders slid to the floor. I didn't care. I didn't even look.
She made me weak. I don't get weak.
But this rage—it's different. It's not the kind I use on enemies or traitors. It's the kind that turns inward. The kind that makes you destroy yourself from the inside, cell by cell, memory by memory.
And yet… I still want her.
Even after all this.
Even if I hate the way she looks at him, even if I hate her for moving on, for laughing like I never existed, for walking away like I didn't give her everything—I still want her back. I want her curled into me again. I want her voice at 2 AM saying my name. I want her arguing with me over stupid things just so she can fall asleep on my shoulder later.
But this time—I won't ask. I won't beg.
If she wants the clean-shaven doctor with the polished shoes and gentle words, then fine. Let her have him.
I'll bury myself in the work. In my legacy. In the cold. And if she thinks I'll sit back and let her heart wander back into my orbit just because she's sick—no. No, I won't be her savior this time.
I'll show her what it means to lose me fully.
Let her regret.
Let Zayn try and save her from the storm.
She was mine.
She'll always be mine.
Even if I have to destroy every soft memory we made just to forget how much I still fucking love her.
The chaos in my mind didn't match the silence around me. My jaw clenched as I replayed her words, her voice—calm but distant, like I no longer existed in the warmth of her world.
She moved on.
Just like that.
And now I'm the fool. The one still burning. The one still breathing her in like secondhand smoke.
No.
No more.
I slammed the glass down onto the table so hard it cracked. It was the last drop of weakness. The last time I'd let her name echo like a curse in my chest. She chose her path—smiles and coffee shops and Zayn's perfect arms. Let her have it. Let her keep that quiet little world.
I don't need her anymore.
If she can laugh again, so can I. If she can fall into another man's life like I was nothing, then I can bury her beneath someone else's name. I will. Not for love. Not for comfort. But for control. For silence. For the image. For the message.
I pulled out my phone, scrolled through the contacts that never meant anything, and paused. There were people—powerful people—who would be delighted to see Sylus, leader of Onychinus, finally "settle." There were families waiting to merge, women waiting to be chosen like trophies, deals that could be sealed with a ring instead of blood.
Maybe this was the way.
Maybe marriage wasn't a surrender—it was a weapon.
I'll announce it.
I'll put it out where she can't ignore it.
I'll let her read it in the news, see it in the whispers, feel it in her bones.
Let her choke on the same silence she left me in.
If she ever cared, it'll kill her.
And if she didn't—then it proves I was always just a placeholder.
Either way… I won.
It's time to burn the pieces.
It's time to erase the softness in me.
It's time to show her exactly who she lost.
Let her keep Zayn.
Let her keep that gentle world.
I'll walk into a marriage built on coldness and business—and make it look like gold.
She taught me what it feels like to be broken.
Now I'll teach her what it looks like when I rise without her.
The pain in me the ego in me is now eating me up. I will let that heart burn and let my emotions crush underneath and let the world crawl to me.
To be continued...