I only lived until now because of my mother.

She took a promise from me.

That I'll be successful in the future and powerful more than anyone could imagine. And I did it.

I built it all. Now ruling over the mafia and feared by everyone underneath and above, owning the biggest real estate empire this world has ever seen under one man's name.

I completed the promise.

But it had no core.

I tried to end myself because everything I built had no meaning without her. Without my mother standing somewhere in this world breathing the same air, none of it meant anything at all.

So I went looking for an ending and instead—

Those ocean blue eyes slapped my mind and stopped me.

That one pair of eyes defeated me at my own death and gave me a reason to live. Gave me a core to survive for.

And I never wanted to leave it. They became my dream and my nightmare simultaneously. My breath and my heartattack in the same moment.

I was drawn to them like a moth to something that was always going to burn me and I couldn't stop.

I didn't even want to stop.

It was addicting in the way that only the most dangerous things are. The kind of addiction that doesn't feel like destruction while it's happening.

It feels like the only real thing you've ever touched.

But life has its way of turning your happiness into sadness. The reason for living into your worst reason for death.

It doesn't warn you. It doesn't apologize. It just turns— slowly, completely— until you're standing somewhere you never imagined and the ground beneath you is gone and you fall in the pit of hell.

That's what's happening to me.

I found my life only for it to get snatched away in the cruelest possible way. And then it came back.

But with a price.

A price I wasn't ready to pay and so, I let it go anyway.

Because she meant more than everything. More than the mafia. More than my empire. More than the promise I made to a dying woman who loved me more than this world deserved.

I forgot every crucial part of myself for her.

And I would do it again in a breath.

She had me like no one ever did. Understood everything without me saying a single word. Strange, right? I was surprised too.

Had questions but answers? None. So I let the questions go. Because they didn't matter.

Only she did.

And I was, and still am, willing to let everything burn just for her.

Standing in the wreckage of everything I built and feeling nothing as long as she's there. It felt like I was made for her.

Like every brutal thing that happened before her was just the universe building something capable of loving her the way she deserved.

I couldn't deny it.

And she had the same feeling. I was sure of it.

She wanted me like I wanted her. She gave me a home, comfort, warmth and something that finally felt like a life worth keeping. She loves me.

Or...

That's just what I thought.

Not everything goes the way you plan. Life is cruel and mocking and it lets you build something beautiful with your bare hands just so it can watch your face when it takes it.

I let everything go in waves just for her. Every purpose. Every wall. Every carefully constructed reason to keep people at a distance.

But maybe she couldn't do the same.

She couldn't choose my love.

She didn't choose me.

She sacrificed everything we built for a price I was never willing to pay.

Chose the destruction of our world instead of staying in it.

My heart tore piece by piece after everything and still I kept it together. For her.

But maybe she couldn't.

Or she never wanted to.

Or worse—

She never had one.

It was all an act. Every single moment. Every warmth, every look, every time she made me feel like I finally belonged somewhere — act.

She used me while I knelt willingly at her feet, giving my entire being into her hands. And she took it. And broke it into pieces so small they can never find each other again.

"Counting your last minutes, Ekansh, hm?"

A familiar, melodic voice pulls me out of the ocean of my own mind.

I focus on the figure standing in front of me with a gun pointed directly at my head.

Those same ocean eyes— the ones that gave me a core, that became my life, that I crossed the entire world searching for— now looking at me like I am something to be finished.

Every time I looked into those eyes I felt like drowning and never coming back from their warmth. It was too peaceful. It felt like finally.

But this time, if I drown in, I will never come up again. The black shadows will close over me the moment I go under. I won't breathe again. I won't see those eyes again.

I don't want this.

Earlier, I wanted to finish everything because it had no meaning. But now it has meaning, it has a life, it has her — and now it's trying to end at the exact moment I don't want it to anymore.

I tried hard but it keeps tearing apart inside me and I can't stop it.

"Why can't you just forget like I did?" I whisper.

I can hear the hurt lacing my own voice. Something I never allowed before. She scoffs and rolls her eyes like my pain is a minor inconvenience.

"Forget? Really? I'm not blind like you." Her grip on the gun tightens.

"Please." The word comes out before I can stop it. It’s raw. Stripped of everything. "For us, please stop this madness."

She scoffs again. The sound cuts bad.

"Us? Really?" The mockery in her tone is surgical. "There was no us. I was just playing with you."

My heart and soul shatter all over again hearing those words out loud.

My eyes close and I exhale slowly. I knew. Somewhere underneath everything I knew. But I didn't want it confirmed. Not from her mouth. Not in that voice which is my home.

"You're lying." I whisper. I don't dare open my eyes and see...

"Are you sure I'm lying? Or is it you who's lying to yourself?"

My eyes snap open.

"I gave everything to you." My voice breaks at the edges and I let it. There is nothing left to protect. "I left every purpose for you. I fucking loved you!"

She stays completely unfazed. Like my words are passing through her and landing nowhere.

"But who said I did too?" She tilts her head slightly. "Hell, how did you even think I have a heart capable of love?"

She laughs. The sound is sharp and bright and it pierces through my soul like something serrated.

"You have one." My voice drops to almost nothing. "I saw it."

She chuckles. "Acting is a skill I own perfectly."

My legs feel too weak to hold me.

"If I can let go then why can't you?" It comes out as a whisper and she looks at me with eyes so cold they could freeze the ocean she stole them from.

"Because you're a fool." She says it simply. Flatly. Like a fact. "And I'm not."

Her finger moves to the trigger and she shoots without a second thought.

The bullet tears through my shoulder and pain explodes like a volcano through my entire body, forcing me backward.

I grab my shoulder, feeling the warm rush of blood between my fingers like something that can't be stopped.

I look at her.

And I still cannot hate her. I want to. God, I want to. But I can't.

"Enough of your bullshit." She shoots my other arm.

I hiss against the blast of pain but keep my eyes on her. I refuse to look away.

"She begged to live." Her voice cracks at the edges for the first time. Just barely. Just enough. "To see me for once. And you people didn't give her that!"

She shoots twice. And it hits my stomach and abdomen.

The force of it drives me backward, each bullet a separate explosion of white hot pain. My head spins violently but I plant my feet and I stay standing. Barely.

One more bullet pierces. At the right side of my chest.

And it sends me directly to my knees.

The floor rushes up to meet me and I hit it hard. The bullets inside my body aren't hurting the way my chest is hurting from something that has nothing to do with gunfire.

It hurts. Very badly.

Why did she give me a heart when she was always going to kill me?

Another shot. Just near my heart this time.

I hunch forward because of the sheer level of pain. A sound escapes me that I've never made before. Something broken and unguarded and completely beyond my control.

My vision blurs at the edges. Darkens slowly inward like a closing shutter.

I hear footsteps approaching close but I don't have the strength to look up. I am so tired. More tired than I have ever been in my life and I have been tired for a very long time.

"Look at me."

At her command I lift my head. Slowly. With everything I have left.

She looks down at me with an expression so cold it has gone past anger into something quieter and more final.

"You were made for me." Her voice is mocking soft now. Almost gentle. "You are just a toy. And now —" she pauses. "It's your end."

A tear slides down my cheek.

Before I can process another breath, something hard connects with the side of my head. Steel against bone.

The impact whips my head sideways and everything goes silent and ringing simultaneously. Blood floods across my vision, warm and dark, flowing down the side of my face.

I have nothing left. Maybe I never had something to hold on.

I slump forward onto the ground.

With the last of whatever remains in me I look up one final time.

She stands over me with a satisfied smile on her face, and the ocean in her eyes is perfectly still.

And so am I.

Maybe I was made for her.

And maybe I was always meant to have my end by her hands.

And... I got it.

My eyes close on their own.

I don't regret a single thing.

She was my everything and she always will be.

Words: 1.8k