Alondra POV:
Alden stood in the shattered doorway, the black rose a grotesque parody of romance in his hand. His eyes, usually so calculating, were wild, almost desperate, as they devoured me. He was thinner, his cheekbones sharper, and a new hardness had settled around his mouth. But it was still him. The monster.
Kolton, reacting with a protective fury I' d never seen, stepped in front of me, shielding me with his body. "Who the hell are you?" he demanded, his voice low and dangerous. "Get out of my apartment!"
Alden' s gaze flickered to Kolton, a flicker of something dark-possessiveness, rage, jealousy-contorting his features. "And who is this?" he sneered, dismissing Kolton with a contemptuous glance. "Alondra, get away from him."
My blood ran cold. The sheer audacity. The unmitigated gall. He had destroyed my life, stalked me across a continent, and now he was issuing commands in Kolton' s home.
"You have no right to be here, Alden," I said, my voice shaking despite my efforts to control it. "Get out. Now."
His eyes widened slightly, as if my defiance was a foreign language. "No right? Alondra, after everything… you think you can just disappear? You think you can replace me with… this?" He gestured to Kolton as if he were a piece of furniture.
Kolton, unperturbed, took a step forward. "I don't know who you are, or what you think you have with Alondra, but you need to leave before I call the police."
Alden let out a short, humorless laugh. "The police? That's rich. You think the police can stop this? Alondra is mine. She always has been."
He took a step into the apartment, the broken door swinging precariously behind him. Kolton moved to block him, his jaw tight. "She clearly doesn't want you here. Get out."
"Alondra, tell him," Alden pleaded, his voice shifting, trying to find the old melody that used to charm me. "Tell him we belong together. Tell him this is all a mistake, a misunderstanding."
"There's no misunderstanding, Alden," I said, stepping out from behind Kolton, my voice gaining strength. "You used me. You planned to humiliate me. You ruined my life. I hate you." The word hung in the air, a sharp, bitter truth.
His face crumbled, a mask of pain replacing his arrogance. "Hate me? Is that what you truly feel? After everything we had?" He took another step, reaching for me. "I came all this way for you, Alondra. I found you. I fixed things. I undid the damage."
"Fixed things?" I laughed, a harsh, brittle sound. "You are the damage, Alden. You are the reason I fled. The reason I had to rebuild my entire life from scratch."
"I was wrong," he insisted, his voice cracking. "I know that now. Krissy… her father… it was all a lie. They lied to me. My family, they discovered the truth. Your father was innocent, Alondra. Completely. I swear it. I've spent the last year trying to make things right, trying to find you."
My head reeled. Krissy's father lied? My father was innocent? A fresh wave of fury, even colder and deeper than before, washed over me. Not just at Alden, but at Krissy, at her deceitful father, and at the monumental, devastating waste of my life. Three years. Three years of my life, my love, my trust, all sacrificed for a lie.
"So, what?" I spat, my voice dripping with venom. "You expect me to believe you? After you deliberately planned to destroy me? After you recorded our most intimate moments and planned to broadcast them to the world?"
His eyes darted, a flicker of guilt, quickly masked. "I never did that, Alondra! I never went through with it! I couldn't. Because I realized… I loved you. I really loved you."
Kolton scoffed. "Love? Breaking into someone's home, terrifying them, and making demands? That's not love. That's obsession."
Alden ignored him, his eyes glued to mine. "I know I messed up, Alondra. Terribly. But I fixed it. I cleared your father's name. I exposed Krissy's lies. I lost everything, Alondra. My reputation, my future at MIT, my family's trust. All of it. For you. Because I realized that nothing mattered more than you."
"You lost everything because you were a vengeful, manipulative bastard," I retorted, the words tearing from my throat. "Not for me. Never for me. You came here to 'fix' me, to 'save' me, to play the hero, so you could feel better about yourself. So you could have me back, like a prized possession you almost broke."
He flinched, but his gaze remained fixed on me, intense and unyielding. "I just want you back, Alondra. I want to make it right. Let me explain everything. Please." His voice was a desperate plea.
"There's nothing to explain," I said, my voice flat. "You made your choices. I made mine. I have a new life here. A good life. A happy life. You are not a part of it."
Kolton, seeing my distress, wrapped an arm around my waist, pulling me gently closer. "She said leave," he stated, his voice calm but firm, a clear warning in his eyes.
Alden' s gaze narrowed, his eyes flaring with a dangerous intensity as he saw Kolton' s comforting gesture. "Don't touch her," he growled, taking another step.
Kolton didn't back down. "This is my home. This is my girlfriend. You have five seconds to walk out that door, or I'm calling the police and pressing charges for trespassing and harassment."
Alden's face was a mask of cold fury, his eyes darting between Kolton' s determined face and my resolute one. He saw the genuine care in Kolton' s eyes, the hand on my waist, the quiet strength that had become my refuge. He saw what he had lost.
A strangled sound escaped his throat. It was a mix of rage, despair, and a chilling possessiveness. He looked at me one last time, his eyes burning with an unholy fire. "You'll regret this, Alondra," he whispered, the words a promise, a threat. "You'll regret choosing him over me. I' m not done. I will never be done with you."
Then, with a final, lingering look that stripped me bare and left me feeling exposed, he turned and stalked out, disappearing through the damaged doorway. The black rose lay forgotten on the floor, its petals crushed and brittle.
The apartment fell silent, the only sounds the frantic pounding of my heart and the heavy breathing of Kolton and me. He held me tight, pulling me into his chest. "Are you okay, love?" he whispered, his lips brushing my hair.
I clung to him, trembling. "He found me," I choked out, the reality of it finally sinking in. "He broke my door. He wants… he wants to destroy me again."
Kolton held me tighter. "He won't touch you. Not as long as I' m here. We'll call the police. We' ll get a restraining order. He won't get near you, Alondra. I promise you that."
But even as he spoke the comforting words, a cold dread settled deep in my bones. Alden Scott was not a man who gave up easily. He was a chess master. And he had just declared a new, terrifying game. A game I didn' t want to play. A game I knew, deep down, he would stop at nothing to win.
He hadn't come all this way to simply leave. His words echoed in my ears, a chilling premonition: I will never be done with you. And looking at the shattered door, I knew he was right. This was far from over. This was a war.
