Leon surged forward from the shattered cylinder, steam rising from his skin like smoke from a warzone.
Surgical wires dragged behind him like leashes torn from a mad dog.
Ella froze—half in shock, half in grief.
His eyes, once cold sapphire, now burned with a storm—memory, pain, obsession.
He didn't blink.
Didn't breathe.
He just walked toward her.
And the closer he came, the more she trembled.
Not from fear.
But from recognition.
She saw him now—not as a billionaire, not as a lover, but as the final result of everything her bloodline and his had ever ruined.
This wasn't a reunion.
It was reckoning.
His love hadn't just been twisted.
It had been engineered.
And now that he remembered—now that every suppressed emotion came roaring back—she wasn't sure whether he wanted to kiss her…
Or kill for her.
Or maybe both.
He was like a star going supernova—beautiful, destructive, incapable of stopping.
And she?
She had always been the gravity he couldn't escape.
The black hole his obsession revolved around.
But what happens when a star collapses into madness?
The answer stood inches from her face.
Sweat, blood, and lightning behind his gaze.
His voice cracked.
"Did they hurt you?"
Ella swallowed. "Not as much as you did."
A twitch flickered at the corner of his mouth. Guilt. Anger. Maybe even love.
"They used me, El. Made me forget. Made me nothing."
"You were never nothing," she whispered. "You were just… lost."
He grabbed her hand. Warm. Solid. Shaking.
"But you came."
"They'll kill us all, Leon. Me. Her." She nodded at Elara.
His gaze shifted to the child.
Paused.
And softened.
"Mine?"
Ella nodded once.
His jaw clenched. A breath hitched.
And then—
The walls exploded.
Flames tore through the lab as armed guards stormed in.
But Leon didn't run.
He launched.
Like a beast unchained, he tore into the soldiers with the precision of a machine and the rage of a man who had waited too long to protect what was his.
Ella grabbed Elara and ducked.
Smoke. Screams. Gunfire.
And through it all—
Leon's voice.
"GO! I'll find you!"
She hesitated.
Tears burning down her cheeks.
But she ran.
For the first time, she wasn't running from him.
She was running because of him.
And behind her—the mountain base began to collapse.