Samantha’s POV
I should have run.
Every voice in my head told me to move. My body knew better. It had learned this lesson before. Nothing about Clyde Marlowe had ever been safe, and nothing about this moment felt right. But I didn’t run. My feet carried me forward without asking permission, and suddenly I was standing in front of him again.
He looked like he’d been through hell — his mouth was bleeding, his shirt torn, one eye already beginning to bruise. And somehow, he still looked like gravity.
There was a dark smear on the corner of his lip. Without thinking, I reached up and wiped it away with the edge of my sleeve. My hand trembled as it moved across his skin. I wasn’t even sure why I was doing it. Habit. Instinct. Or maybe I just wanted one more second of pretending that what we’d had was something close to real.
He didn’t flinch. His eyes stayed locked on mine, steady and unreadable.
And then he kissed me.
There was nothing soft about it. His mouth collided with mine like he didn’t trust himself to stop, like he needed to make sure I still existed. His hands twisted into my hair. My fists stayed pinned against his chest — not pushing, not pulling, just suspended in that same unbearable space between fear and want.
And I let him.
Because no matter what he was — broken, dangerous, wrong — I still wanted him like a bad habit I hadn’t kicked. I kissed him back because pretending not to want him had always been the harder choice.
But I broke the kiss first.
I pulled away, breath stuttering, lips bruised. “This is a mistake,” I whispered. The words felt thin, already unraveling between us.
“I don’t care,” he said.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, the same one that had held my face just seconds earlier. His voice dropped low — calm, almost too calm — but the edges were starting to fray.
“Your brother’s debt. I’ll pay the rest of it off,” he said. “You’re free.”
The words hit me in the chest, sharp and final. There it was. My freedom. Just like that. No strings. No negotiations. He’d unhooked the last chain holding me here — and still, I didn’t know what to do with it.
And then the front door flew open.
The crash of it against the wall made me jump. Michael’s footsteps pounded through the hallway, fast, wet from the rain outside, still wearing the same shirt he’d left in. It was soaked through, stuck to his chest.
He didn’t stop to speak.
He looked at me, at Clyde, at the distance between us, at our faces, at my hair, at his blood.
Then he lunged.
He hit Clyde square in the ribs, drove him backward into the wall. A picture frame shattered against the floor. I screamed his name. Tried to grab Michael’s arm. I was too slow.
Michael punched again, straight into Clyde’s jaw.
Clyde staggered but didn’t block it. He didn’t fight back.
“I knew it!” Michael yelled. “I fucking knew it. You hurt her!”
Clyde’s eyes never left mine.
“I didn’t touch Sam,” he said, voice rasping. “Not like that.”
Michael shoved him again, hard enough to knock over a side table.
“Don’t talk to her. Don’t say her name!”
And then Clyde snapped.
“I paid your debt,” he bit out, louder now, less composed. “Maybe thank me before you break your hand on my face.”
I threw myself between them.
My hands pushed hard against Michael’s chest. “Stop. Just stop it.”
He looked down at me. His breathing was ragged, his fists still curled.
“He doesn’t deserve to be here.”
“I know.”
“You let him kiss you?”
The question knocked the air from my lungs.
I tried to answer. Tried to explain. But the words didn’t come.
The silence said everything.
Michael stared at me like I was a stranger. Like someone he didn’t trust anymore.
“I don’t recognize you,” he said, softer now. “Not at all.”
Then he turned around and walked straight out the door, letting it slam behind him.
I didn’t follow.
I stood in the center of the room, surrounded by broken glass, blood smears on the tile, the entire living room wrecked. Clyde was still leaning against the wall, bruised and bleeding, his hands shaking just enough to notice.
The only thought that came to me — the only one I could hold on to — was this:
What does freedom even mean if I still want him?
***