Leon hadn't left the hospital room in twenty-four hours.
He hadn't slept.
He barely ate.
Instead, he watched the security footage of their past over and over—clipped fragments of a man obsessed, of a woman trapped.
When Ella returned with a bag of clothes the nurses forced on her, she found him still kneeling on the floor, the screen paused on an image of her crying behind a glass wall.
Her lips pressed into a line.
"You need to sleep," she said flatly.
He didn't look up.
"I need you to hate me less first."
Something twisted in her chest.
He was broken now. Not just in memory, but in soul.
And damn it—she didn't know what she hated more: the man who once destroyed her, or the one in front of her now, tearing himself apart in silence.
Why was it so hard to leave?
Why did his pain feel like hers now?
Because part of her—no matter how small—still remembered the boy he used to be.
Before the madness.
Before the obsession.
Before love became possession.
It was like watching a tyrant unravel into a child who couldn't remember why the world feared him.
And she—she was the storm that created him, and the calm that could undo him.
But only if she allowed it.
Only if she dared.
He finally looked up at her, eyes red, voice hoarse.
"Give me one week," he said. "I don't want forgiveness. I want to… earn the right to apologize."
Ella narrowed her eyes.
"And if I say no?"
Leon stood, slow but sure, taking one step toward her.
"Then I'll still follow you. One step behind. Every day. Until I deserve to disappear from your life… or stay in it."