Obsession His Runaway Bride (Noelle and Adrian) novel Chapter 124

Chapter 124: Cruel

Chapter 124: Cruel

The door had long since clicked shut, but its echo still rang in Marco’s ears like it was his final judgment.

The silence was suffocating and the heart monitor beside him beeped with a maddening calm which was a cruel contrast to the chaos unraveling inside his chest. His fingers curled uselessly into the bed sheets. He wanted to scream. Tear the room apart. Rip out every tube, every wire, every reminder that he was now half the man he used to be–if he had ever been one at all.

But all he could do was lie there.

Alone.

And think.

He had lost her. No, he had destroyed her.

“Grace….” He uttered painfully.

Her name hit like a punch to the gut, like the thousandth echo of a name he’d spent years pretending didn’t matter. But it did. She did. And now… now he could finally see what it had cost him to deny that truth.

She had loved him. God, she had loved him with a heart full of bruises, and he–he had given her nothing but more pain. He had known. Somewhere deep inside, he’d always known what she felt for him. How she used to look at him with eyes that begged him to see her. Just see her. Not as Faith’s sister. Not as a burden. Not as a ghost walking in someone else’s shadow.

But he hadn’t looked. He hadn’t let himself.

Marco’s jaw clenched as the tears welled in his eyes–hot, bitter, ashamed. He didn deserv to cry. Not when she had bled silent tears for years, right beside him. Loving him and beggi. in her own quiet way to just be seen.

And he never looked.

Not really.

He had been too busy chasing Faith. Sweet, perfect Faith. The sister who stole everyone’s affection the moment she smiled. He thought she was his salvation. His anchor. But in loving her, he never questioned what it cost Grace to watch.

He never questioned what it meant for Grace to carry her sister’s memory like a wound no one would let her heal.

No… he hadn’t just ignored Grace.

He blamed her.

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Chapter 124: Crusi

+15 BONUS

He remembered the day he told her she disgusted him. He could perfectly remember how her eyes didn’t even water. She only shrugged it off. As if she had already believed it before he said it. As if he had only confirmed what the world kept telling her… ‘You are unworthy. You are unwanted…‘

And when Bartholomew raised his hand against her… when that monster lashed out again and again…Marco only stood there.

He only fucking stood there and told himself it was to keep the peace. To obey. To protect the family. But deep down, he didn’t move because he believed she deserved it. That she was the reason for the chaos. That she was the root of every fracture in their broken house.

But she wasn’t.

She was just the only one strong enough to still love them through it.

And even after realizing everything she was going through and knowing that there was truth behind her words… he still chose to pull the trigger and protect the man he was supposed to call father.

His hand trembled at the memory, and he pressed his palm over his eyes to suffocate the image. Her body collapsing. Her blood on his hands. The horror in her face when she realized he tried to kill her when she never came to hurt him.

Because she believed he was one person who was supposed to protect her.

She had begged him to believe her.

And yet, he hadn’t.

He believed Bartholomew. That sadistic, lying bastard who turned their lives into a nightmare. Marco’s real father. A man who raised them all like pawns. Who beat Grace into silence Who watched her rot in isolation and called it discipline. And Marco… stupid, blind Marceyhost

him.

Every choice Marco made led to this.

And now he was paralyzed. Trapped in a bed, a prisoner in his own body just like Grace had been trapped in a life where no one chose her. Not even him.

For the first time in his life, Marco DeLuca cried… not from pain, not from the fire in his spine, or the knowledge that he’d never walk again. But from something far deeper and far crueler.

It was the kind of sorrow that made breathing feel like punishment.

Because he finally understood.

Grace had loved him unconditionally.

In the spaces no one else bothered to look. In the moments he didn’t deserve to be loved. And

she had done it while being blamed, beaten, and ignored by everyone including him.

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Chapter 124 Cruel

+15 BONUS

She had been the one person who stayed. Who endured him. Who gave him everything she had, even when he gave her nothing in return.

And he had shattered her.

He remembered her eyes… those eyes that used to light up when he entered a room, slowly dimming over the years as she realized he would never look at her the same way he looked at her sister. He remembered how he blamed her for Faith’s death because it was easier than facing the truth.

Because he couldn’t see past his own hurt. Because all he saw was a ghost of the woman he loved whom he couldn’t save, not the woman who was standing right in front of him… loving him, still.

And now she was gone.

Gone in every way that mattered.

Maybe she was alive. But not for him. Not anymore. Maybe she was out there, smiling for someone else. Holding someone else’s hand. Being loved in the way she had begged to be, once, by him.

And she deserved that. God, she deserved that.

He would never blame her for walking away.

He would only blame himself for never loving her sooner.

Marco’s chest heaved and his body wracked with silent sobs as the weight of every choice collapsed onto him. Guilt, sharp and suffocating, pierced deeper than the bullet ever had.

He wanted to go back. Just once. To stop himself from looking away. To hold her when she cried. To choose her the way she always chose him. But time didn’t bend for regret.Pony dragged him through the ruins he made.

So all he could do now was lie in the wreckage and grieve what he destroyed with his own

hands.

And maybe… maybe if there was anything left of him, try to become someone better. Not for

her. Not anymore.

But because she had already learned how to survive without him.

And now, he would have to learn how to live without her.

And that was the cruelest part of all.

Because even in her absence… he still loved her.

And it was far, far too late.

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Chapter 125 Sunset