Chapter 16
Chapter 16
He drove.
The rain was already sheeting when he left the house — not the polite kind of rain, but the kind that arrives with intent. The sea beyond the harbour was churning black, and the bay bridge shuddered slightly in the wind as he hit it at speed.
The wipers were at full and he could barely see.
He didn't slow down.
Ahead, in the rain, three black cars moved in formation — steady, unhurried, the way cars move when the people inside them have drivers who are paid to be careful.
Julian pulled across two lanes and stopped crossways in the road.
He was out of the car before the engine had properly stalled. The rain took him immediately — inside his collar, into his eyes, soaking through his jacket within seconds. He was drenched within a hundred metres of walking.
He put both hands flat against the glass of the middle car. The rain was roaring. He could feel the bridge trembling beneath him.
"Lily!" He slammed his palms against the window. "I know — I know everything now. It was all Scarlett. Every lie, every setup, every piece of it. I was blind and stupid and I trusted the wrong person and I let it destroy everything and I know that. I know it. I'm sorry. I'm asking you — please—"
The window descended.
Just a crack.
Through the gap, blurred by rain: Lily's face.
She looked exactly like herself. Composed in the way a very still lake is composed. Not removed — present, watching him. But entirely settled somewhere he couldn't follow.
"Julian." Her voice was clear through the storm, somehow. "Let us pass."
"I can't—" His voice cracked open. "If you get on that plane — I'll never find you again. And I need you to know — I know everything. All of it. I wasted everything we had. I destroyed it. I chose wrong, over and over, and you were the one who paid for every choice I made. I'm asking you — not to take me back, not to forgive me — I'm just asking you not to disappear."
The window didn't move any further.
"Let me prove it. Give me a chance. If you go — I won't have anything left. Lily, I'll jump." He looked at the railing. The drop below was invisible in the rain and the dark. He moved toward it. "I mean it. I'll do it. My life means nothing without you in it. If this is how it ends, then this is how it ends."
He grabbed the barrier. Both hands. He started to pull himself up.
Marcus's security team poured from the cars.
Three of them had him before he cleared the railing.
He fought. He always fought. He screamed her name into the storm, and the rain and the wind took the sound and scattered it into the dark, and he kept screaming.
The team pressed him down. He was stronger than he looked but there were three of them and eventually physics won.
He lay against the road, rain hammering onto him, and kept calling for her.