63 Lost love

**Date = 30 June**
*Four more days of anxious nothingness.*
**Place = San Francisco (Inferno)**
*Working at the club.*

**POV - Enrique**

Quiet.
The club is too quiet.
I hate quiet. Not the kind that blankets you at three a.m. when the world sleeps. That kind I can live with.
This is the other kind — the kind that smells like dread and tastes like waiting.
And tonight the club has the kind of quiet that makes you suspicious. Like maybe the universe is holding its breath before throwing something weird at you.
I am behind the bar, chopping lemons and regretting my life choices.
And I’m anxiously waiting for the BOMB to explode. And not just literally … I mean in every possible sense. Figuratively, theoretically, technically, hypothetically, visually, philosophically, metaphorically.
Because Jackson’s time is almost up. A choice has been made, and somewhere, Lee is going to blow up.
It’s been more than five days since we rescued Aria. More than 100 hours since my twin made his choice and ran off. Axel found him. But then both of them disappeared together.
Until an hour ago.
Axel stumbled in, looking like a walking disaster. Except he didn’t walk — he waggled. Like he’d been through hell and decided to keep going.
Hair matted with sweat and dust, stuck like it had been clawed at. Dried blood crusted one eyebrow, a streak of smut on his cheek like war paint. His face was gaunt, shadowed by days of no sleep, jaw tight with tension, and eyes so bloodshot they barely looked human.
His shirt — once white — was a grimy, stiff shade of brown, stained with something that looked suspiciously like vomit and engine oil. His jeans sagged off his hips, filthy and torn at the knees, caked with mud and hell knows what else. The soles of his shoes flapped when he walked.
He stank — sour sweat, rot, and the metallic tang of blood clung to him like a second skin. Even the air around him seemed heavier, fouler. His mood? Beyond exhausted. Numb. Like someone who’d seen too much, survived too much, and had nothing left to feel.
He collapsed on the couch in the office.
I checked him for wounds, found nothing too serious, and decided not to ask. He had that look in his eyes — like he’d fought someone or something or himself. I know it too well. It’s Jackson’s signature look.
So I left him to recharge.
I roll a whiskey tumbler between my fingers and scan the room. Usually, this time of night, the place is a storm — noise, bass, bodies, chaos. But tonight? Tonight, it feels like an abandoned church after a funeral.
One lonesome drinker sits at the bar, and a couple of small groups are scattered between the booths. The music is soft and smooth. The dance floor is empty.
The lighting is low, the kind that makes your sins look romantic. I haven’t slept in … hell … I don’t know … maybe a week. Maybe since Lee vanished. Maybe since the pregnancy thing. Maybe since Aria left me. Maybe since my mother’s last breath.
Time has gone liquid.
A girl in heels, a gold mini dress, and a sexy friend walk toward the bar. She leans in, her voice a sultry purr, asking for a shot of Mezcal.
I smile, easy and lazy, like a man who hasn’t felt anything real in months. “Only if you let me pick the chaser.”
She giggles. Phone already out. Her friend is filming. Of course.
Perfect.
I pour myself a drink from the bottle I swirl so theatrically behind the counter. Nothing but water. Clear, odorless, harmless. But the label says Reposado, and that’s what counts. Image.
I serve her drink, take a fake swig myself, and let the girl snap a photo with my arm around her waist. She takes her Sangrita and walks away, blowing me a kiss.
I slam the cap shut and lean against the bar, letting the bottle clink back onto the shelf like punctuation. Every movement is calculated. Every fake shot is part of a role I don’t want to play but have to.
For them. To keep Aria safe.
My jaw flexes. The social media posts are doing the rounds — me with girls, half-smirking, eyes dead. Tonight alone, I had a blonde licking salt off my wrist, another brunette whispering in my ear. And the gold mini. All over Inferno’s tagged pages. Enough to make anyone think I am spiraling.
Especially them. But also Aria.
I hate it.
I hate knowing that every photo is a knife. That every time she sees me fake-laughing or flirting, her heart probably twists. Like mine.
But I’m not safe. No one near me is. Not until this thing with whoever is over. Not until Lee is back. Until Cindy stops avenging. Until Amanda’s ghost stops whispering in the walls.
I am handing the single man at the bar another beer when a girl walks in. Mid-twenties. Heels clicking. Legs long. Dress short. Hair dark and glossy, tits built for betrayal.
Great, another headline.
She doesn’t look around. She doesn’t need to. She owns the room just by existing in it.
She strides straight to the bar, her perfume arriving five seconds before she does —something expensive and unnecessary, like regret in a bottle.
She’s not my Batnip, so I put on my fake flirty face on the outside. Inside, my mood officially sucks.
And the top main reason for my foul mood — Brian fucking Cruise.
While I’m here, making every effort on my part to maintain the appearance that I’m devastated by the loss of my ‘baby’, Brian is swooping in on my girl.
These last couple of days (and I’ve personally and painfully witnessed this firsthand), Aria and Brian are getting pretty cozy with each other. He’s successfully infiltrated her private space by using his little sister, allowing her to make friends with Leyla.
So, currently, he’s occupying what should be my place with them, and the idea of her falling for him (or anybody else) officially scares the shit out of me.
“Looking for Axel.” The girl brings me back to earth, settling onto a stool with the grace of someone used to being stared at.
“And you are?” These days, my trust in strangers is a little bent. Especially, brainless bimbos with excessive cleavages.
She looks slightly offended, maybe more by my impolite tone than my foul expression.
“Eh … my name is Tina … I’m his … we … eh … work together.” She comes out as slightly frazzled, so I’m guessing that she might be more than just a coworker. Or she fervently wants to be.
“You seen him?”
“Define *‘seen’,*” I sneer, polishing a glass that is already spotless. “Because if you mean spiritually, like a tortured soul hanging in the air like Axe body spray — then no. If you mean physically — he’s dead asleep in the back.”
Her eyes narrow. “You always this sarcastic?”
“You always this dramatic?” I give her my signature drive-women-wild grin.
She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Only when it comes to that boy. He took leave. No texts. No calls.”
“He’s not a great texter,” I smirk, “Even worse caller.” That’s the truth. She pouts as if she knows.
I pour her a drink — vodka neat, and pull the salt and lemon plates closer. “You two dating?”
“No,” she says too quickly. “Not really. We … eh … work together.”
“And occasionally swap bodily fluids,” I finish. She sighs and downs her shot.
“Just don’t get your hopes up,” I rap, sipping a real drink, “Axel’s not exactly … available. Not emotionally. Or spiritually. Or probably legally.”
“I’m not stupid,” she states.
“I didn’t say you were. But I’ve seen enough girls pretending sex is commitment to recognize when someone’s trying to rewrite the script.”
She gestures for me to fill her up. She takes a sip before she says, “I like to believe that if you dream it, it can happen.” Oh, an optimist. Probably had a great childhood with no monsters and nightmares.
I snort.
What a cliché quote some or other happy drunk motivational speaker concocted when he was at a loss for words. It must be the same asshole who suggested grabbing life by the horns, that winners never quit, and that everything happens for a reason.
“Well, keep on dreaming, girl.” Cause that dream is not gonna happen. Luckily, that’s Axel’s shit. Not mine. I fake a smile, “Cheers!” and throw the alcohol down my throat before I bite into a piece of lemon. The sour taste causes goosebumps on my skin.
“Can you point me to the back?”
“No.”
She crosses her arms to scaffold her boobs, pushing those ladies into a super seductive intermammary cleft.
A few stools down, the middle-aged man in a tattered brown coat and beard like a Civil War general is about to have a heart attack, openly staring red-faced at her plums. And who can blame him when they’re advertised so freely?
Tina turns her brown-eyed gaze to the person in question, and he promptly chokes on his beer. Frantically, he coughs, eyes tearing up. He’s a regular, coming here more nights than not, always sitting by himself, drinking alone as if the whole world rests on his shoulders.
She gives him a wry smile and sweeps some stray hair behind her ear. The man stops coughing and wipes his beard with a napkin. “You guys don’t know anything about love.”
Tina blinks. “Excuse me?”
“I know heartache when I see it,” the man says, gleefully. “Been married for an eternity,” there’s a dramatic pause, “… to the wrong person.”
He lifts his beer. “That’s why I drink.” He lowers his glass and turns it around and around in his hands. Both Tina and I wait silently for him to continue.
“If you’re lucky enough to find the right one, never let them get away. That’s the biggest mistake you can ever make in life.” He looks up into my eyes, and I swear he is filled with longing, regret, and sadness.
“You know, at the time, I walked away, thinking I was protecting her. Now I can’t even remember what the hell I was protecting her from.”
I fake a smile, thinking that this is gonna be me one day ― a sad, lonely man filled with remorse, drinking my nights away, mourning what could have been.

Fucking crap.
Did I make a mistake pushing her away? Maybe I should have just told her the truth. Is it too late to make amends? Will I be able to make her mine for real?
But most importantly, will she understand my reasoning?
I’ve made some desperate choices these past couple of weeks ― all under the false pretense of protecting Aria. But deep inside, I know that to be a huge lie. The truth is, I’m a coward. I was protecting myself.
Tina slides off the stool. “Tell Axel to call me. Or don’t. Whatever.”
She spins on her heels and sashays toward the exit — leaving behind the scent of vodka, disappointment, and something floral.
I watch her walk away, feeling a slight ping of empathy. Like the man, I also know what heartache looks like by now. I know the feeling of its barbed tentacles around your neck ― painfully smothering you until you struggle to breathe.
I pick up a lemon and start to cut it.
Yep, I know exactly what that feels like. That suffocating fear has been with me since the day I met Aria ― fear of saying the words, fear of feeling something, fear of opening my heart, fear of getting hurt. But most of all, the fear of losing her.
Which most probably already happened.