Inheritance ✔

Chapter 10 - Rupture

Renzo Hart

Pain had always been manageable.

A cracked rib. A bullet grazing flesh. The sting of broken knuckles after a fight—those were things I understood. Pain was simple. It was noise in the body. You acknowledged it, treated it, moved on.

But this pain?

This was something else entirely.

This pain was her crying beside me in the armored car.

This pain was the sound of her saying "You're not allowed to die here."

This pain... was not in the body.

It was in the chest.

In the part of me I had always kept locked down—deep beneath the discipline and duty.

It was her.

We got back to the penthouse just after sunrise.

My father's men swept the perimeter. Medical personnel moved fast—patching my wounds, stabilizing the bleeding, muttering about internal damage and tissue trauma and "He's lucky the bullet didn't tear through the artery."

Laurier never left my side.

She didn't cry.

She didn't say much.

She just sat in the corner of the room, legs crossed, fingers clenched too tightly in her lap. There was blood on her wrist—my blood. Her blazer had been ripped at the shoulder.

She didn't notice.

When the doctors finally cleared out, I closed my eyes.

The world was spinning. My shoulder throbbed. My thigh burned. But it wasn't until I heard the soft creak of her chair moving closer that I forced myself to speak.

"You should be sleeping."

She said nothing.

I cracked one eye open.

She was standing now, looking down at me like I was something fragile. It didn't suit her—caution. Laurier Ashford was born to command chaos, not fear it.

"You almost died," she said quietly.

"I didn't."

"You would have—if you were two inches to the left."

I didn't respond.

What was I supposed to say? Sorry for taking a bullet for you?

I would do it again. A thousand times. For her, always.

She stepped closer. Her voice low. Controlled.

"You risked everything for me."

I let my head fall back against the pillows. "It wasn't a risk."

"Don't—" she snapped suddenly, voice breaking. "Don't do that. Don't act like this was just another mission."

"It was a mission."

"No, it wasn't."

Silence stretched between us. Too long. Too heavy.

I turned my head toward her again.

"Then what was it?"

Her jaw trembled, just barely.

And then, finally, she said it.

"It was me. It was because of me. And because you—" She exhaled. "You feel something."

I didn't move.

My pulse pounded louder than the pain.

"You think I don't know?" she whispered. "That I haven't seen the way you look at me since we were teenagers?"

I closed my eyes again.

Too much.

Too honest.

"I thought it would pass," I muttered. "That if I buried it deep enough, it would die."

"And did it?"

I looked at her then.

Right into her eyes.

"No," I said. "It got worse. Every year. Every man you touched that wasn't me. Every stupid tabloid I had to clean up. Every night you came home smelling like someone else."

Her face softened. Her arms folded tight across her chest.

"I didn't mean to—"

"I know," I interrupted. "You were never mine. I never expected anything."

"But you wanted it."

"Yes."

"Still want it?"

I hesitated. Then—

"Yes."

She walked to the edge of the bed and sat. Careful. Slow.

Her voice was quiet.

"I didn't know how to want anyone back."

"I know."

"Maybe I still don't."

"I can live with that."

She looked at me like I was breaking her apart.

Then whispered, "You shouldn't have come for me."

"That's not something you get to decide."

"I'm serious. I'm not safe to love, Renzo. I'll ruin you."

I smiled weakly. "Too late."

A single tear escaped her eye. She brushed it away quickly.

"This wasn't supposed to happen."

"Neither were we."

We were quiet again.

She slid her hand into mine.

And I realized—this was the rupture.
Not the bullets. Not the kidnapping.

This.

Her hand in mine.

Not because she wanted to sleep with me.

But because she wanted me here.

Because she was scared.

And I'd never seen Laurier Ashford scared.

Not like this.

The next few days were a blur of recovery and silence.

She barely left the penthouse. I was confined to bed, mostly. Stitches, painkillers, fresh bandages. My body moved like it didn't belong to me anymore.

But she was always nearby.

Sometimes, she sat at the foot of the bed, working on her laptop. Other times, she stood by the window, arms crossed, watching the skyline as if trying to figure out how to take the world back into her hands.

She didn't touch me.

Not sexually. Not like before.

That part of us paused—like a record waiting to be played again.

But she was close. Always close.

And that was something she'd never offered anyone.

On the fourth night, I woke to find her in my bed.

She wasn't doing anything. Just lying beside me, fully clothed, head on my shoulder.

She didn't speak.

Neither did I.

But our hands found each other again.

And in that silence, something shifted.

This wasn't about protection anymore. Or lust. Or survival.

This was us.

Two people who had bled too much for each other to pretend it didn't matter.