sadho3

Y/N was shaking, but she hadn’t made another sound in minutes. Her shoulders were tight, locked high like she was bracing for another blow. Her arms wrapped around her knees, the ropes slack at her sides now, forgotten. Her eyes were hidden beneath a fall of hair, her face buried just enough to make her unreadable, but Giselle didn’t need to see her expression to know what was there.

It was written in every tremor, every breath that came too fast, every inch of space that now stretched between them like a chasm neither of them knew how to cross.

And Giselle? She was panicking.

Not in the outward, chaotic way she’d seen in others. No screaming, no shaking, no. Hers was quieter, compressed, like her body was doing everything it could to keep it together while her mind clawed at the inside of her skull, searching for the right thing to say. The thing that would make Y/N turn toward her, that would undo the look in her eyes, the silence that had suddenly become so loud it felt like it was pressing against her chest.

She shifted her weight, the rope around her wrists digging in deeper as she tried to lean forward, to get even an inch closer.

“Y/N,” she said, voice low and hoarse.

No response.

“Y/N, please…”

Still nothing.

Her throat tightened, her voice cracking as she tried again. “I didn’t know.”

She hated how empty the words sounded, how brittle. Like an excuse, like a lie. But they weren’t. They weren’t.

“I didn’t know he was your father,” she said, more desperate now, her voice hitching. “Not then. I didn’t know what they’d done to him, I didn’t even know he was gone until months later.”

The words were pouring out of her now, unfiltered, frantic. Truths she hadn’t said aloud, not even to herself.

“I knew our families had history. I knew there were connections, secrets. I always knew there was blood somewhere in the foundation, but I didn’t know it was his blood, I didn’t know it would ever touch you.”

Y/N flinched, barely. A tiny shift in her posture, like the wind had changed direction. But she still didn’t look up.

“I would’ve told you. I swear to God, I would’ve told you if I’d known,” Giselle pressed on. Her voice was cracking now, close to breaking. “I never, god, I never would’ve let you walk into this blind.”

She meant every word, and it didn’t matter, because Y/N didn’t move. She didn’t look, didn’t even breathe like she was listening.

And something about that, it shredded Giselle. It hollowed her out in ways nothing else ever had. Because Y/N’s silence had always been steady, grounding, a space where words weren’t needed. But now? It was sharp, painful, like it was meant to hurt, like it was the only way Y/N could speak now.

By refusing.

Giselle stared at her, heart hammering in her chest, and for the first time since she’d taken over the company. Since she’d made herself into something powerful, something untouchable. She felt powerless.

Because this wasn’t a room she could control, this wasn’t a deal she could negotiate, no. This was Y/N, curled in on herself, breaking quietly right in front of her, and shutting her out completely.

And Giselle didn’t know how to come back from that.

Her voice softened, as if trying to soothe a child, as if lowering the volume could somehow reach deeper.

“I know I hurt you. I know you don’t want to look at me right now. I wouldn’t either,” she said, the words catching in her throat. “But please, just, just listen. Please.”

Still, nothing.

Only the sound of Y/N’s quiet, broken breathing, only the weight of all the things Giselle hadn’t said soon enough. Only the unbearable truth that maybe this time, it was already too late.

Giselle waited, if it could be called that, bound by rope, yes, but more so by helplessness. Her wrists burned, but the pain didn’t matter, not when the silence across from her was no longer peaceful. Not when it was loaded with betrayal, with the echo of everything she hadn’t said and the violence of what Y/N had just discovered.

And yet, she kept talking.

Because the silence would kill her if she didn’t.

“I didn’t tell you about my family because I was afraid,” she said again, steadier now. Not calmer, never that, but more certain. “Not of the truth itself. I’ve lived with truth like that my whole life. I was afraid of what it would do to the way you looked at me.”

Her voice thinned, but she pushed through.

“I didn’t know everything about your father, but I knew enough. I knew the kind of things my family was capable of, the kind of things I’ve been complicit in. By staying silent, by surviving.”

A breath. Her eyes burned, but she didn’t blink.

“I knew our families had touched. That the past wasn’t clean, that there were connections we were never supposed to talk about, and I thought if I kept that part buried, if I never let you see how deep the rot went, you’d still feel safe with me.”

Y/N flinched again, not big, just a twitch in her arm, a tightening of her jaw.

It was enough.

Giselle swallowed, her throat felt full of glass.

“You signed that night,” she said softly. “When we fought. I was trying to push you away, and you, god, you just stood there, and you signed it.”

She paused, remembering it like a scar.

“I saw it,” Giselle whispered. “Every letter, every motion. I’ve played that moment in my head a thousand times since. You didn’t hesitate, even when I said things that should’ve made you run.”

Y/N’s breath hitched.

One hand came up, clutched tight at the fabric of her own sleeve, like she could press the feeling down, crush it before it overwhelmed her.

Giselle leaned forward as much as the ropes would allow, her voice rough now, strained.

“I didn’t say anything because I was afraid,” Giselle said, her voice lower now, almost ashamed. “And because I didn’t even know what it meant. Not then, not really.”

Her eyes flickered up to Y/N, still curled in on herself.

“I didn’t understand what you were signing that night. I thought you were just desperate, reaching, I didn’t let myself believe it could be real. That someone like you could ever mean it, not with someone like me.”

She exhaled sharply through her nose, half a bitter laugh, half a breath she hadn’t let herself take since that night.

“I didn’t understand it until you were gone,” Giselle said quietly, the words dragging out of her like confession.

Her voice wavered, brittle at the edges.

“I kept seeing it, those signs, the way your hands moved. I couldn’t stop replaying it.”

She swallowed hard.

“So I looked it up. After you left.”

That part landed heavier than she expected, like saying it out loud made her realize just how late she had been.

“I had to Google the words you signed to me, and when I saw what it meant…”

Her breath hitched.

“I realized what you were trying to give me, and I broke it before I ever understood what it was.”

She hesitated, then let it go.

“I do love you.”

Y/N’s body jolted, subtle, almost imperceptible, like a fault line quietly giving way beneath the surface. There was no gasp, no dramatic recoil, no violent shudder, just a tremor that moved through her like the aftershock of something internal finally collapsing. It wasn’t resistance, it wasn’t anger. It was grief, pure and suffocating. The kind that doesn’t scream or strike back, but folds in on itself, pressing every ounce of pain into silence because there’s nowhere else for it to go.

Because those words, they had once meant everything.

She had signed them with fingers that shook but refused to hesitate and had given them freely even as Giselle pushed her away. They were a truth she had chosen to offer when she was already bleeding, already exhausted, already unsure of what love was allowed to look like between someone like her and someone like Giselle. And now? Here they were, spoken aloud for the first time, not whispered in warmth or returned in kind, but unearthed in the middle of devastation. Surrounded by betrayal, wrapped in death.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to hear them, it was that she couldn’t bear to hear them now.

Y/N’s breath stuttered. Her hands, clenched tight in the fabric of her sleeves, began to shake. She pulled her knees closer to her chest, shoulders curling forward like her body was trying to protect something soft and breaking inside her. 

And then, without meaning to, without control, her hand flew to her mouth, pressing hard against it as if she could physically hold in the sound rising up her throat.

But it came anyway.

Not a sob, not even a cry. Just a sound, fractured and wet, barely more than a breath, but sharp and raw like it had been torn from her lungs. It was small, almost nothing.

But to Giselle? It might as well have been a scream. Because Y/N, who had endured so much in silence, was breaking in front of her again. Not in fury, but in sorrow. Not in rage, but in devastation. And there was nothing Giselle could do to stop it, nothing she could say to make it right.

She watched, her own breath caught in her throat, as Y/N’s face pressed deeper into her arm. Hiding everything, eyes, mouth, the sobs now quietly slipping out one after another, like something had finally snapped loose and couldn’t be put back. Her back rose and fell in uneven, trembling waves, and her fingers curled tighter, digging into her own sleeves like she needed to hold herself together or else she might dissolve entirely.

Giselle had never felt more useless in her life.

She had power, she had legacy, she had control over rooms full of men and families who bowed when she entered. But in this warehouse, tied and bloodied, face to face with the person she had hurt the most, none of it mattered. She had no words strong enough to build a bridge across the wreckage, no gesture big enough to pull Y/N back from wherever she’d gone.

So she gave her the only thing she had left.

“I love you,” she said again, softer this time, her voice worn down to its foundation. “And I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry I made you carry all of this alone.”

She didn’t know what kind of apology would ever be enough. Maybe there wasn’t one, maybe this was all she would ever get, this moment, this mess, this silence.

And then, something shifted.

Not in a grand way, not dramatically. But Y/N, through the blur of her tears and the collapse of everything she’d once believed was safe, turned her head. Slowly, warily, and for the first time since the silence had broken, she looked at her.

Her eyes were red and swollen, lashes stuck together, cheeks slick with tears. There was no softness in her expression, no understanding, no sign of comfort. Her gaze met Giselle’s, held it. Just for a breath, but in that breath? Giselle forgot how to breathe. Because Y/N hadn’t forgiven her, not even close, but she hadn’t turned away. 

And in a moment like this, between grief and guilt, between everything they were and everything they’d ruined, that felt like more than she deserved.

The eye contact between them broke like glass underfoot, shattered by the long, aching creak of the warehouse door. It echoed through the space like a warning, metal dragging against metal, and with it came footsteps. 

Heavy, steady, final.

Giselle’s breath hitched, her body snapped alert.

Boots clapped against concrete, several sets. The sound bounced off the walls with a cruel rhythm, each step announcing that whatever fragile, human thing had just passed between her and Y/N was already over.

Jeno’s men had come.

The flicker of calm was gone, the world snapped back into brutality.

Y/N flinched at the sound, head ducking instinctively, body curling in on itself again, but this time, there was no silence to cry into, no shelter in the stillness. Two men approached her from either side, all sharp elbows and gloved hands, and before she could brace, they seized her. One gripped her upper arm, the other grabbed a fistful of her jacket at the back, yanking her upright like a ragdoll.

She didn’t fight, she couldn’t. Her body moved limply between them, legs trailing a step behind, like her soul hadn’t caught up to the moment yet. Her breath came fast, shallow, her eyes locked somewhere distant as if dissociating was the only defense she had left.

“Don’t touch her,” Giselle snapped, her voice low and dangerous, even as her own body refused to move with her rage. She strained forward, trying to rise, trying to reach them. But one of Jeno’s men was already there, fast, brutal, precise. His boot came down hard between her shoulder blades and shoved.

She hit the ground like a crash that had been waiting to happen. Concrete scraped across her cheek, her chin, her ribs. The cold floor bit into her skin as the air left her lungs in a sharp, choking exhale. She writhed beneath the pressure of the boot, wrists still sore and half-bound, her pulse thundering at her temples.

One of the others knelt beside her, silent and impersonal, and began untying the rope from her wrists, not with urgency, but with a cold, professional efficiency. Not to set her free, just to make her manageable. She wasn’t a person to them, she was part of the inventory.

And then he was there.

Jeno stepped into the room like a shadow made flesh, clean, precise, eyes bright with the calm of someone who had just watched every domino fall exactly where he placed them. He moved with the arrogance of a man who didn’t fear resistance, didn’t fear consequences, because he had already calculated the cost and decided everyone else would pay it.

He paused near Y/N.

She was still breathing fast, her eyes unfocused, tears drying unevenly on her cheeks, her frame unsteady between the men who held her. She didn’t fight them, she didn’t look at anyone.

She just stood there, half-broken, barely upright, like a house hit by a storm that hadn’t fully settled yet.

Jeno tilted his head, observing her as if studying a piece of art he found vaguely interesting. And then, with one slow, measured step, he moved behind her.

Giselle tried to rise again. Her arms trembled, teeth clenched, body dragging itself upward inch by inch despite the weight on her back.

“Don’t,” she growled, “touch her.”

But it was too late.

Jeno raised his hand with calm and drew the gun, sleek, matte black, no hesitation in the movement. With a chilling slowness, pressed the barrel to the side of Y/N’s head.

The click of the metal against her skull was soft. Soft but deafening.

Y/N stiffened.

Not with fear, with instinct. Like her body remembered too much about what it meant to have power pressed against your temple and no voice to scream with.

Giselle froze, the pressure of the boot on her back suddenly meaningless compared to the sound of that gun connecting with skin. Her breath disappeared, her muscles locked.

And for one terrible second, everything went still.

Jeno leaned in slowly, almost intimately, like he was whispering something sweet. But his voice was sharp, casual and inevitable.

“You’ve never had anything to lose before, have you, Aeri?”

He didn’t look at Y/N when he said it, he looked straight at Giselle. And then? He smiled, it was small and measured. Like a man who had just watched the world bend to his design.

“But now you do.”

Giselle couldn’t breathe.

The image of Y/N, small, trembling, tears still drying on her cheeks with a gun pressed to her head, was seared into her vision like a burn. Her brain couldn’t process anything else. Every sound faded, every shape blurred. It was just that one detail. The gun, the stillness, the brutal intimacy of the way Jeno leaned in like he owned the moment, like he had orchestrated it from the beginning.

And maybe he had.

Giselle’s hands twitched at her sides, her wrists were red and raw, the rope loosened now, but she didn’t reach for anything. Her body was frozen, flooded with too many instincts at once, fight, protect, plead. But none of them would be fast enough, none of them would matter if he pulled that trigger.

Her mouth moved before her mind caught up.

“Don’t,” she said, her voice barely recognizable, frayed and thin, stretched so tight it sounded like it might break apart mid-word. “Please, don’t do this.”

Jeno didn’t look at her, so she tried again.

“Take me.”

That got his attention.

His gaze slid toward her, slow and deliberate. He looked at her like someone observing a lab experiment they already knew the outcome of.

“I’m serious,” she said, louder now, more urgent, the desperation leaking through the cracks in her voice. “Take me instead. You want the company? Fine, it’s yours. I’ll walk away from all of it. Hell, I’ll sign the transfer right now if that’s what you want.”

Her heart was hammering in her chest, but she forced herself to keep speaking, keep offering.

“You can have the title, the control, the empire. Everything you think I stole, just let her go.”

Silence followed.

The kind that didn’t settle, it sank.

Jeno didn’t react at first, he simply blinked once, then slowly tilted his head like her words were something mildly interesting, something to savor.

And then he smiled.

Not wide, not gleeful. It was soft, cold and dismissive.

“That’s what I wanted to hear,” he said, his voice almost affectionate. “Finally, that edge of yours? Gone. That pride? Gone. All it took was a trigger and a girl to shatter you.”

Giselle gritted her teeth, her breathing uneven. She hated how right he was, but it didn’t matter. She would’ve dropped to her knees if she thought it would help, she would’ve bled, she would’ve crawled.

“Let her go,” she said again, quieter now. “Please.”

Jeno took a step closer to Y/N, his hand steady, the barrel of the gun pressing deeper into her skin. Y/N flinched, not loudly, not visibly, but Giselle saw it. She saw the ripple that went through her body, saw the tears welling again, not from pain but from sheer terror, and she couldn’t take it. She couldn’t watch it.

Then Jeno turned his full attention to her again, that mockery of warmth still curling at the edge of his mouth.

“You don’t get it, do you?” His tone dropped, lower, sharper.

“I’m going to take everything anyway.”

Giselle’s stomach twisted, her fingers curling into the concrete as if she could claw her way through it.

“And I’m going to destroy the only thing you ever cared about.” He leaned in toward Y/N again, his voice soft now, almost tender. “You.”

Giselle’s body went rigid.

The air felt too thin, the walls too far away. She couldn’t feel her hands anymore, just the pounding of her heartbeat in her throat, in her ears, in her skull. Her mind raced, screaming for a plan, a weapon, anything, but there was nothing. She had power, she had legacy, she had everything, except the one thing she needed now.

Time.

And she was watching it run out.

It started with the faint sound of tires against gravel, low and steady, almost forgettable in its subtlety. Until it wasn’t, until it rolled into the silence like the whisper of something inevitable. A presence long overdue.

Giselle lifted her head, eyes straining toward the edges of the darkened warehouse, where pale streaks of light suddenly cut across the far wall, sharp beams of white sweeping through cracks in rusted steel. 

Headlights. 

Bright, artificial, intrusive. The kind of light that didn’t belong in this place, the kind that meant something was about to change.

And then? Doors slamming in quick succession. 

One, two, three. 

Each thud a punctuation mark, clean and final, like an ending being written just outside the threshold.

Footsteps followed.

Heavy, unapologetic. A rhythm that struck the ground with calculated purpose. They weren’t rushing, they didn’t have to. These weren’t the erratic movements of chaos, they were practiced, controlled. The arrival of people who didn’t just hope to take control, but had been trained for it.

The warehouse door swung open, first slow, then fast, rattling on its hinges as light burst through it, flooding the space with the cold, sterile glow of weapon mounted flashlights and hard fluorescent edges.

And with it came her last card.

Her security.

Not the kind who guarded nightclubs or luxury apartments. These were men she’d handpicked, and paid in silence to stay ready for moments like this. Black uniforms, tactical vests, weapons raised and steady. They fanned out quickly, voices sharp with command, not panic.

“Hands where we can see them.” “Step away.” “Drop the weapon.”

They didn’t shout, they didn’t hesitate, they filled the room like water through a cracked floor, fast, efficient and impossible to stop.

Across the space, Jeno’s men stilled.

Giselle saw it, the shift in posture, the flicker of uncertainty in their shoulders. One of them stepped back without meaning to, another gripped his weapon tighter, eyes darting between Jeno and the incoming threat like he was recalculating loyalty.

For a moment, just one, Giselle felt something uncoil inside her. Not quite relief, not yet, but the suggestion of it. The possibility. She drew in a breath, thick and sharp and painful in its hope, her pulse still thudding against her ribs, wrists aching from rope burns, chest bruised from where she’d been forced to the ground. But it didn’t matter, because she had planned for this, this was hers.

And then, like a wave crashing in reverse, everything inside her went still again.

Because Jeno hadn’t moved.

He didn’t shout, he didn’t bark orders to his men, he didn’t raise his weapon in warning or recoil in frustration. He simply stood there, calm and grounded, like none of it surprised him.

The gun remained where it was, pressed with terrifying ease to Y/N’s temple, his finger resting lightly on the trigger as if it had always belonged there. Y/N body had gone rigid, she stood like a statue carved in fear, chest rising in tiny, frantic breaths, her eyes wide and vacant as if her mind had already started retreating.

Giselle tried to rise fully, but her knees gave out. The blood was draining from her face, her hands tingling with numbness, every inch of her screamed to move, to leap, to rip that gun from his hand, to do something, but she was paralyzed by the knowledge that anything reckless might be the thing that tipped him over the edge.

Jeno finally turned his head, not to Y/N, not to the guards, but to her. His gaze found her like a predator scanning the wreckage after a successful kill. And then? He smiled. It wasn’t cruel, it wasn’t forced, it was calm, like he had known this would happen, like he had counted on it.

“You always were three steps ahead, weren’t you, Aeri?”

The way he said her name made her stomach knot, a blend of disdain and something almost fond, the kind of familiarity reserved for childhood enemies who know too much about each other’s wounds.

He gave her a slight nod, almost respectful, like this was a chess game and she had finally made a decent move. And then, without breaking eye contact, he turned back to Y/N.

The gun pressed tighter.

Not enough to bruise, just enough to remind everyone in the room where the real threat still lived.

“But guess what?”

His voice dropped, not louder, not sharper, just heavier. The kind of weight that filled a room even when no one moved.

“You’re still going to lose.”

The air was coiled tight, as if the whole warehouse were holding a breath it couldn’t release. The weight of a dozen unspoken threats hung suspended in the charged stillness, crackling just beneath the surface. It wasn’t a question of if the standoff would explode, it was when, and who would survive the fallout.

One of Giselle’s guards shifted, a subtle movement, nothing more than a practiced half-step into a better position, likely meant to protect his line of sight. But in a room this tense, that was all it took.

The silence ruptured.

The first shot cracked through the air like a thunderclap, sharp and sudden, the flash from the barrel lighting up the warehouse like lightning in a blackout. No one knew who fired first, and it didn’t matter. The moment the sound hit, the spell shattered completely.

Everything descended into chaos.

Gunfire erupted in bursts, loud, bright, disorienting. The warehouse, once oppressively still, now erupted with movement, fast and brutal. Boots slammed against concrete, orders barked and drowned beneath the noise, and figures collided in a flurry of black fabric, steel, and aggression.

Giselle’s security force surged forward, weapons raised, bodies moving with the trained precision of men who had rehearsed this moment in silence. They closed the distance with grim efficiency, moving in teams, clearing angles, neutralizing threats with a practiced brutality that made her almost forget to breathe. One of Jeno’s men dropped under the weight of a baton to the temple. Another attempted to return fire but was disarmed mid-motion, slammed into the ground so hard the impact echoed louder than the gunfire.

The balance shifted instantly.

Jeno’s men weren’t ready. They weren’t prepared for soldiers, they were used to intimidation, not combat. A third turned to run but barely made it two steps before a shoulder tackled him mid-sprint and brought him down hard, weapon clattering uselessly across the floor.

And still, Jeno didn’t move.

He remained exactly where he was, centered in the storm, as if the collapse of his side had already been accounted for. The noise grew louder, sharper. Metal on metal, the scrape of boots, the crash of bodies slamming against crates, but he stood firm, unaffected, unmoved.

Because he didn’t need numbers.

He still had Y/N.

His arm had coiled around her like a vice, one hand braced at her waist, the other holding the gun tight to the side of her head. Her breath was uneven, short, shallow, almost inaudible beneath the chaos, but her body had gone stiff. Not from resistance, but from fear. The kind of fear that freezes you in place, the kind that roots itself in the bones.

Giselle’s eyes locked on that image, Y/N dragged backward, her face turned just enough for Giselle to see the tears clinging to her lashes, catching the artificial light like shattered glass.

It was too much. 

Too much noise, too much danger, too much at stake.

And somewhere beneath all the terror, the panic, the nausea twisting her stomach into knots, there was a splitsecond of clarity, a flicker, an opening. Jeno’s head had turned slightly, just enough to bark something to the man beside him, just enough to give her that breath of space, that inch of distraction.

It was enough.

Her body moved before her brain had finished forming the command.

Muscle and instinct surged together, adrenaline overriding pain, control, doubt. She lunged, everything she had, every ounce of weight and desperation, thrown into the motion.

Because Y/N was still breathing.

And Giselle would burn the whole world to keep it that way.

Her body collided with Jeno’s side in a rush of force that was all instinct and nothing refined, an ungraceful, full-bodied impact that lacked precision but not intent. It wasn’t enough to knock him down completely, but it was enough to make him falter, to jar the careful balance of control he had so carefully maintained, and for that half-second of imbalance, it was everything.

His arm jerked upward, elbow twisting under the weight of her shove, and the gun tilted just off its mark, enough for the shot to miss.

The explosion of the gunshot tore through the warehouse like a grenade, so loud it felt like it split the air in half. The flash of fire from the muzzle lit up the space for a breathless instant, painting the shadows in harsh orange as the bullet screamed past Y/N’s head and punched into the wall behind her with a sharp, sparking hiss of metal meeting concrete.

Y/N staggered backward, the force of movement knocking her slightly off balance. Her breath caught in her throat, eyes wide, face pale beneath the residual streaks of tearstained skin. For a moment she looked disoriented, like the world had shifted beneath her feet and she wasn’t sure where solid ground was anymore. Then a hand reached out, one of the guards, gripping her arm, anchoring her. He pulled her back, fast and firm, shielding her with his body as he maneuvered her toward the relative safety of the side wall.

But Giselle didn’t have time to watch her get clear.

Because Jeno turned.

Gone was the cool detachment, the smirking patience of a man who believed the board was always his to command. What faced her now was stripped down, unmasked, a creature shaped by bitterness, loss, and the violent realization that he was losing again.

He didn’t say a word, he didn’t need to.

He lunged.

The world narrowed in a blink as his body crashed into hers, tackling her with his full weight. Her feet left the ground, and the breath was knocked from her lungs as her back slammed against the unforgiving floor. The impact jarred every bone in her spine, pain flaring through her ribs and shoulders, but it was the weight on top of her, solid, crushing, relentless, that stole the air before she could even gasp.

She barely had time to raise her hands before his were on her.

Not curled into fists, open and controlled.

At her throat.

His fingers closed around her neck with terrifying precision, not in a burst of blind rage, but with the slow, unyielding grip of a man who knew exactly how much pressure was required to end someone. The sudden, terrifying squeeze was immediate, no warning, no buildup, just her air vanishing, her muscles seizing, her mouth opening wide in a silent choke that never made it into sound.

Her hands flew to his arms, nails digging in, scraping across skin, but he didn’t react. Didn’t even blink. His body straddled hers, pinning her hips with the crushing weight of his knees, the floor beneath her offering no give, no relief. Her legs kicked instinctively, her boots scuffing wildly against the concrete, searching for leverage she didn’t have.

Her vision pulsed.

The edges darkened.

And above her, through the blur of panic and failing oxygen, Jeno’s face stared down at her, utterly still. Not screaming, not snarling, just calm and focused. The cold, calculating face of someone who believed this was always how it would end.

Her lungs spasmed, the burning behind her ribs spreading like wildfire, her mouth gasping but pulling in nothing. Her thoughts fractured, scattering like leaves in a storm, images flashing too fast to hold. Y/N’s face, the tremble in her hands, the sound of her voice breaking the silence for the first time in years, the look in her eyes when Giselle said I love you, the fear in them now.

She wasn’t going to make it.

She was going to die here. Under him, with her hands flailing, her voice crushed, her body weakening second by second.

But her body? It refused to stop fighting.

She twisted hard, her hips wrenching against the pressure of his weight, one knee jerking up in a desperate attempt to shift him off balance. Her nails tore at his wrists, dragged across the side of his neck, raked down his jaw, but it barely slowed him. His grip stayed firm, tightening incrementally as her arms weakened, her hands shaking now, slipping against his skin.

The room spun.

Her heartbeat pounded against the inside of her skull like a fist banging on a locked door. Black crept in from the edges of her vision, not in soft blurs, but in ragged claws, sharp, sudden voids clawing into her sight.

But she refused to close her eyes, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

She wouldn’t let this be the end.

And then something slammed into Jeno’s shoulder.

It wasn’t a guard, it wasn't a strategy. It was smaller, faster, a flicker of motion shaped by panic and instinct. 

It was Y/N.

She had thrown herself at him with everything she had left, not with the weight of a fighter but with the blind momentum of someone who had already lost too much to let it happen again. Her hands grabbed at his shoulder, her body crashing awkwardly into his side, and though she didn’t have the strength to topple him, it was enough to make him stumble, to break the seal of his grip on Giselle’s throat for a single, precious breath.

Giselle gasped, the first rush of air ripping through her lungs like broken glass, coughing as her body spasmed and twisted under Jeno’s weight, trying to recover even as her vision swam.

But the relief didn’t last.

Jeno’s elbow slammed backward, brutal and practiced, catching Y/N across the chest and sending her flying backward with more force than her frame could take. She hit the ground hard, her knees collapsing first, then her shoulder, then the side of her face, her breath punched out of her in a sharp, strangled sound. She lay there stunned, the warehouse spinning, the hard floor pressing into her back like the world itself was trying to shove her out of the moment, but her eyes stayed open.

And through the blur of pain and shock, she saw it.

Jeno’s hand moved behind his back, not rushed, not chaotic, but precise, reaching for something she hadn’t seen him draw yet. A flash of silver caught the light, not a gun. 

A blade.

He was going to end it.

Y/N’s hand twitched against the floor, fingers trying to form a sign, to raise a warning in the only language she had always trusted. But her arms weren’t fast enough, her hands too weak, her body too slow, and there wasn’t time.

Her voice long buried beneath trauma, silence her only language for years. Except something was rising now. Not in her hands, not in her head.

In her throat.

A sound, a word, a name.

Her lips parted, and it came before she could stop it, before she could second guess the shame or the pain it would carry.

“Aeri watch out!”

The voice that tore from her chest was not clean or full or strong. It was damaged and shredded, like it had clawed its way up from deep inside her, dragging years of silence and swallowed screams along with it. It was hoarse, rough edged, and barely louder than a whisper, but it carried.

It carried like a weapon.

Giselle heard it.

Her body moved before her mind could fully register what she had just heard. She twisted her torso hard, rolling across the concrete just as the knife came down, the blade slicing the air where her neck had been a breath ago, slamming into the floor with a metallic scream. Sparks shot out from the impact, and the sharp edge skipped across the cement before settling flat with a clang that echoed in the stillness that followed.

But it wasn’t the knife that made Giselle’s heart stop.

It was the voice.

That broken, fragile, utterly impossible voice.

Y/N had spoken.

Giselle’s eyes went wide, not with fear, not even with pain, but with something closer to disbelief, the kind that rooted her in place, not because she couldn’t move, but because she couldn’t process what she had just heard. She didn’t freeze because of the weapon still raised beside her or the man looming over her, breathing hard with rage and desperation.

She froze because, for the first time in years, Y/N had spoken aloud.

And it hadn’t been anger. It had been a warning. A call, a name.

Her name.

The knife missed, barely, the weight of it slamming with a shriek of metal and sparks, but Giselle didn’t react. Not to the sound, not to the blade. Her eyes weren’t on Jeno anymore.

They were on Y/N.

She was still on the floor, curled slightly to one side, shoulders trembling, hands clenched around nothing, as if the force of the words she had just spoken had torn something loose inside her. That voice still echoed in the back of Giselle’s mind like an aftershock. It didn’t seem possible, not after all this time, not after the silence. But she’d said her name, said it with urgency, with fear.

It should have been a turning point.

But Jeno hadn’t let go of the moment.

He pushed himself up with a stumble, his body heavier now, breath rasping through clenched teeth, the sharp edge of desperation bleeding through his expression like water through cracks in glass. His pupils were blown wide, not with panic, but with that furious clarity that lives in a man who has lost everything but still refuses to yield. Blood smeared one side of his face where Giselle’s nails had caught his cheek earlier, the cut shallow but vivid, a red streak that made him look even more unhinged in the flickering light.

Around them, the warehouse had turned quiet in an unfamiliar way, the kind of silence that follows violence, not because peace has returned, but because the pieces are still settling. The clash of bodies and gunfire had faded, replaced by low groans, the occasional shout of a command, and the heavy tread of boots as Giselle’s guards swept the perimeter. Jeno’s men were gone, disarmed, unconscious, or dragged away. There were no reinforcements coming.

He was alone and he knew it.

But he didn’t look scared, he looked resigned.

Giselle rose slowly to her knees, every inch of her aching, her chest still tight from where his hands had closed around her throat minutes earlier. Her muscles trembled, but she forced herself upright, her body swaying slightly, breath shallow. She kept her eyes on him, watching as he stood still, as if calculating whether there was anything left he could break before the lights went out.

And then his eyes dropped.

She followed his gaze instinctively and saw it.

The gun.

The one he’d lost during the struggle. It was lying on the ground just next to him, half-hidden in the shadow cast by a fallen crate, the barrel catching a sliver of light like it was calling to him. Her mouth opened to shout, maybe a warning, maybe a plea, but her voice caught.

Because he moved.

Fast.

He pivoted on his heel and dove, his hand closing around the grip with the kind of precision that came from knowing how to kill and meaning it.

“Don’t,” she whispered, but the word never reached him.

He rose, spinning on the balls of his feet, the gun already raised, already aimed, not at the guards, not at the ones with rifles still trained on him, but at her.

Only her.

And there was something horribly calm in the way he did it, like this had always been the plan.

“If I can’t have this,” he said, voice low, breath ragged, his expression unreadable but for the cold finality in his eyes, “then neither can you.”

And then he fired.

The sound cracked through the warehouse like lightning through iron, louder than anything that had come before, not because of the volume, but because of what it meant.

Giselle saw the flash before she felt anything, saw the muzzle ignite in his hands, saw his body recoil slightly, the bullet loosed from its chamber with deadly purpose, and her own instincts responded a heartbeat too late. Her body tensed, bracing, she started to turn, started to move.

But she wasn’t the one who moved first.

It was Y/N.

She was already standing, no, throwing herself forward, her legs barely working, her balance compromised by the pain and adrenaline surging through her like a storm, but still, she moved. Not with hesitation, not with thought, but with the kind of urgency that comes from love.

She crossed the space between them in less than a second, the world narrowing to a single, instinctive motion, her arms out, her body moving without thought or fear, not toward safety, but into the path of the gun. She didn’t shout, she didn’t call out. She just moved, fast and certain, like her body knew what her mind hadn’t had time to process.

The gun went off.

There was no scream. Just a sound, something visceral and final, the crack of the shot, the breath of air torn from lungs, and the dull, sickening weight of impact.

Y/N jolted, her body arched, almost lifted, as if the force had passed through her and left nothing untouched. Her shoulders recoiled violently, her hands faltered mid-reach, and for one suspended instant, it looked as though she might hold her balance.

But then she folded.

Her knees gave out beneath her. Her arms dropped limply at her sides. Her head dipped forward, and a breath, not quite a gasp, not quite a sob, escaped her lips, soft and strangled. Her entire frame collapsed in on itself like something internal had broken and would not hold.

Giselle didn’t think, didn’t breathe.

She was on the floor before she realized she’d moved, arms catching Y/N as her body gave out completely. The weight of her was warm and real and too heavy, too sudden. Giselle’s hands went instinctively to her back, pulling her close, lowering her down as gently as panic would allow, her own knees hitting the ground so hard the impact radiated up through her spine.

And then she saw it.

The blood.

A smear across fabric. 

Her breath caught. Her fingers trembled. She pressed her palm over the spot without thinking, without even knowing if it would help, just needing to do something, to stop something, as if that alone might reverse time.

Y/N’s head tilted, resting against her shoulder, her skin far too pale, her body far too still. Her eyes were open, but unfocused, dazed, like she was trying to stay here and not quite managing it. Her lips parted, soundless, moving around a word that didn’t come. Her throat shifted, trying to speak, to explain, to say anything, but only a breath came out. 

Around them, chaos returned. Shouts, movement, a command snapped with urgency. The thud of bodies hitting the ground. Someone tackled someone else, a weapon skidded across the floor.

None of it touched Giselle.

She stared down at the face barely inches from hers, her eyes wide, her mouth open, waiting for something, anything.

But there was nothing.