Justin – POV
I’m fucking stupid.
Stupid to believe she’d co back. Stupid to think I ant more.
Stupid to imagine that after everything—we’d still have sothing real.
She already hooked up with another guy.
Those words—they’re acid. They burn every ti they echo inside my skull.
The images co uninvited: her laughing in soone else’s arms. Her flushed skin, her soft sounds, the way she used to look at , now turned toward him. That stranger. That fucking replacent.
I punch the wall before the thought finishes forming. My knuckles split open with the first hit, but I don’t stop. I don’t want to feel anything but pain. At least it’s real. At least it’s not her.
The voices inside roar.
The softer voice? He’s curled up sowhere inside, gutted. Bleeding. I can feel his despair like a shiver across my bones. He whispers things like maybe she was scared and you pushed too hard.
Shut up.
The sarcastic scoffs, too cool to care, but I feel his pride fracture. He’s shaking, pacing, growling about how we lost our girl to so fucking soft-handed therapist who doesn’t know what to do with a woman like her.
The Bloodthirst?
He’s smiling.
Oh, he’s grinning ear to ear. He’s humming a lullaby made of screams and betrayal. He wants fire. He wants revenge. He wanted the stupid jerk that touched her head. He wants to make her rember who I am—what we are together. He wants her to pay for running. To bleed for choosing soone else.
And ?
I’m just sitting here. Sowhere in the middle of them all, hating myself more than anyone else could.
Because I let her go.
Because I didn’t chase.
Because I thought—I actually thought—that if she needed space, I should give it.
I wanted to be better. For her. With her.
But she doesn’t want better. She wants peace. Quiet. Normal.
I am none of those things.
I’m rage barely restrained. I’m the fractured edges of a broken weapon pretending to be a man. I’ve buried too many bodies. Worn too many masks. And all of it—I thought I could lay it down for her.
I thought she saw .
But maybe she only saw what she wanted to.
I pick up the photo fra—us, one of the rare monts she let herself laugh—and I stare at it for a long ti. Then I smash it against the desk. Glass shatters like the illusion I’ve been living in.
She’s not coming back.
She’s not waiting.
And she sure as hell isn’t mine anymore.
"Find out who he is," I growl to Rico’s voicemail. "The man she spent the night with. Na. Address. Everything."
I hang up, chest heaving. Eyes burning.
I don’t know what I’ll do when I find him.
But I will find him.
And maybe... just maybe... I’ll finally stop pretending to be the version of that deserved her.
I knew from the beginning that our relationship was fake. A relationship of convenience, necessity even—mutually beneficial in all the wrong ways. But sowhere along the line, the lines blurred. I don’t know when it started feeling real for . I just know it did. And I never imagined it would end like this.
Not with her fucking sobody else.
The pain settled in my chest like burning coals. Hot. Angry. Smoldering. It wasn’t heartbreak—it was betrayal wrapped in humiliation. The image of her moaning for soone else, her fingers gripping their skin like she used to grip mine—it made my vision red with rage.
I paced my room like a caged animal. Every second that passed with nothing to do, nothing to focus on, pulled closer to the edge. I was going insane. Full-blown, no-saving- kind of insane. I needed to do sothing—anything—to stop the bleeding in my head.
So, I did what I always did when the world slipped too far sideways.
I called the Redbull Club.
"Get Celeste," I said, voice tight, clipped, barely restrained.
The line clicked, and a second later, her cool, familiar voice flowed through. "Justin."
"I need a session."
"Any preference?" she asked, her voice silky professionalism masking the judgnt I knew was there.
"Pretty Cat," I said without hesitation.
There was a pause. "Let check if she’s available."
"Good. Set it up. Tonight."
I ended the call and leaned against the study table twitching for a drink. But this wasn’t about numbing myself—not this ti. This was about control. About power. About burying the feeling that I’d been gutted with a dull knife.
I didn’t know Pretty Cat’s real identity. The club’s rules were ironclad—identities sealed, masks always worn, no personal connections. But she knew , in the ways that counted. She knew how to take the heat off. How to take the edge and break it against her folds. Rough. Relentless. Like we were punishing the world—or maybe ourselves—for ever letting us feel vulnerable.
And she resembled June.
Not in an obvious way, but enough. The shape of her lips. The way she tilted her head when I pushed her back. The sound she made when I got it just right.
That’s why I kept going back.
I used to pretend it was June I was with during those sessions. Every breathless mont, every graze of skin, every sharp intake of air—I imagined it was her under . Her surrendering. Her clawing at like she wanted to be ruined.
And then it actually happened.
I got June.
I touched her. Tasted her. Took her.
And now?
Now she was gone. Off fucking soone else like what we had ant nothing. Like I hadn’t bled for her in my own quiet way.
Would Pretty Cat still be enough? Would she be able to pull the fantasy back into place now that I’d known the real thing?
I guess there was only one way to find out.
I grabbed my keys and headed for the garage. My car—a sleek silver beast I rarely drove—sat like a sleeping dragon, waiting. I needed the speed. I needed the thunder of the engine and the whip of the wind. I needed to burn up the road like I was trying to escape myself.
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