Chapter 2: The Ghost of a Boy

The past never really dies. It lingers in forgotten corners, whispering in the silence between heartbeats. And tonight, the past had a name.

Elias.

Calista stepped into the mansion, her wet shoes sinking into the polished marble floor. The air smelled of smoke and rain, of something expensive and untouchable—like him. Dim lights cast long shadows across the endless hall, making everything feel stretched and unreal.

It was too quiet.

She knew better than to believe in silence. Silence wasn’t peace; it was a loaded gun waiting to go off.

Then, from the far end of the room, a voice cut through the stillness. Deep, steady. Too familiar.

“You’re late.”

She turned slowly.

Elias stood at the top of the staircase, dressed in all black, his presence swallowing the light around him. He had changed in the years since she last saw him. The boy she once knew had been lean from hunger, his clothes too thin to keep out the cold. Now, he was all sharp angles and ruthless control, power built into every movement.

But his eyes—storm-dark, calculating—hadn’t changed at all.

Calista swallowed hard, lifting her chin. “Was I expected to come running?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he descended the stairs with unhurried steps, like a king walking toward something already his.

“I thought you’d forgotten me,” he murmured when he reached her.

She almost laughed. “Forgotten you?” Her fingers twitched at her sides. “How do you forget the only person who ever felt real?”

Something flickered in his expression, gone before she could catch it.

“You shouldn’t have come,” she whispered, though it was too late for that now.

“I didn’t come,” Elias corrected. “I took.”

The words wrapped around her like a chain. I took.

Of course, he had. That’s what he did. That’s what he had always done.

The boy behind the iron fence had once told her he would own the world one day, that he would tear it apart piece by piece and put it back together under his own rules. And she—she had been the only thing he had ever wanted to keep.

Calista shivered as she looked at him now, the ghost of that boy still lurking beneath the man he had become.

Was this what they had been fighting for all along?

She had thought their story ended years ago. But as she stood before him, watching the slow, knowing smile curve his lips, she realized the truth.

Hi everyone Authy this side just wanted you to know I will update 2 chapters regularly

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it's a dark romance story

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