The corridor was dark, only dim torchlight flickering against the stone walls. You stood with your back pressed against the cold stone, breath uneven.

“Mattheo, stop following me,” you muttered, your voice trembling despite how desperately you tried to sound steady.

He froze a few feet away, jaw clenched, eyes burning like storm clouds about to break. “You think I can just let you walk away from me?” His voice cracked in a way you’d never heard before. “Not after everything.”

You swallowed hard, shaking your head. “Everything? You mean the lies? The fights? The way you push me away every time I get close?”

Mattheo’s hands curled into fists at his sides. “I push you away because it’s not safe! Because every time I look at you, I see the one thing they can use to destroy me. And I’d rather tear myself apart than let them touch you.”

Your chest ached. “So your solution is to destroy me instead? To make me feel like I never mattered to you?”

He stepped forward, desperation etched across his face. “You think you don’t matter? You’re the only damn thing that does. That’s the problem!” His voice dropped to a whisper, ragged and broken. “You’re the only weakness I have, and my father would burn the world down just to see me bleed.”

Tears stung your eyes, but you forced yourself to meet his gaze. “Then let me choose, Mattheo. Stop making decisions for me. If loving you means danger, I’ll take it. But what I can’t take is you shutting me out like I’m nothing.”

His eyes softened, a war raging behind them. He reached out, fingers trembling as though he was afraid to touch you. “I don’t deserve you,” he breathed. “I ruin everything I love.”

You closed the space between you, though your heart felt like it was breaking with every step. “Maybe. But you don’t get to decide whether you ruin me or not. That’s mine to choose.”

For a moment, silence stretched, heavy and suffocating. Then Mattheo pulled you into his arms with a desperation that was almost painful, his voice muffled in your hair.

“I don’t know how to let you go without destroying myself,” he confessed.

And you held him tighter, knowing that whatever came next—pain, heartbreak, or worse—you were already in too deep to walk away.