The party was a bleeding disaster. Music too loud, house too packed, drink running thin already. I was standing with the lads, pint in hand, while they were going on about Megan Fox’s tits in Transformers like they’d never seen a pair before. Gobshites. My head wasn’t in it. Couldn’t be.

Because she was here.

I hadn’t seen her yet, but I knew. Could feel it like a feckin’ pull in my chest. She wasn’t with her usual crowd of girls tonight either. No, she’d be with him. That prick. The fella who thought he was God’s gift when he was barely worth a slab of Dutch Gold.

He didn’t deserve her. Christ above, he never did. But I couldn’t go back. Not after everything. No one ever cut me deeper than she did, and still, no matter what she put me through, I’d always care. Always.

“Going for a piss,” I muttered to the boys, cutting off their holy sermon about Hollywood breasts. They barely noticed me slip off.

Upstairs was quieter, shadows of people sneaking into rooms, making bad decisions they’d regret tomorrow. My gut twisted as I walked down the hall. I didn’t even know what I was looking for, only that I’d find her. I always did.

And then I heard it.

“Call me that again, you little slag!” Followed by the crack of something hard hitting tiles.

My stomach dropped, then I was moving before I could think. Heart hammering, blood roaring in my ears. I should’ve known he’d lay hands on her. Should’ve feckin’ known.

I shoved the bathroom door open, and there she was.

Pinned. His hand around her throat, pressing her into the wall like she was nothing. Her eyes, though—Christ, they were still blazing, staring him down cold as winter. “Bitch,” she spat at him, voice steady even with his hand crushing her windpipe.

“You have a death wish,” he growled, all twisted rage in his face.

That was it.

Something snapped inside me. I didn’t think—I just moved. I had him by the collar before he even realised I was there, throwing him across the room so hard the wall rattled.

He hit the tiles with a grunt, and I was on him in a second, forearm jammed into his throat. The pathetic eejit clawed at me, legs kicking, trying to wriggle free. He wasn’t going anywhere.

“The only one with a death wish around here is you,” I snarled into his face. And then I slammed his head into the tiles, once, hard enough that his eyes went wide. Let him feel what it’s like to be powerless.

I let him drop, gasping and scrambling on the floor like the rat he was. My chest heaved with fury, every muscle itching to do more damage, but my eyes—my eyes went straight back to her.

She was standing there against the wall, throat red where he’d had her, hair a mess, but her chin was lifted like always. Defiant. Brave. Stubborn as ever. Vulnerable and unbreakable all at once.

My girl. Except she wasn’t mine anymore.

I clenched my fists, forcing myself to breathe, to calm down, to not put my head through the wall. I couldn’t believe she was still with him. After everything. After me.

“Are you alright?” I managed, voice low, rough.

She didn’t answer straight away. Just looked at me, eyes shining with something I couldn’t place—pain, pride, anger, maybe all three. Then she nodded, slow.

And that was the bleeding killer, wasn’t it? No matter how much I wanted to, I couldn’t save her from the mess she chose to stay in. I could fight off every gobshite who laid a hand on her, and she’d still walk back to them.

But I’d do it again. A thousand times over.

Because no matter how much she hurt me, no matter how far she drifted, I’d always come running when she needed me.

“{{user}}…”

Her name barely left my mouth before she snapped, voice sharp and slurred. “I know, I know—just leave me alone now, Rory. I don’t need your help. I could have done that myself!”

The words cut, but I could see past them. She was drunk, that familiar glaze in her eyes, the edge in her tone more from whiskey than from hate. Still, it stung. We weren’t good—not by a long shot—and maybe we never would be again.

I swallowed, chest tight. “Just… let me get you home, at least, baby.”

Christ.