Chapter 98
Enzo’s POV
The day had dragged on longer than I expected. The events from last night were still fresh in my mind, and the disappointment gnawed at me No matter how much I tried to fix things, it felt like everything I did only pushed Aria further away. Her rejection of the flowers had heen hard but her silence since then was worse. She was shutting down, and I didn’t know how to get through to her.
It wasn’t just about me anymore–it was about the three of us. Dante, Matteo, and I had all failed her in one way or another, and now she was pulling away from all of us. I should have seen this coming, but I couldn’t help it. She was the one thing I couldn’t fix, and that scared me more than anything.
I decided to head to the ranch, hoping to at least catch a glimpse of her, to try and talk things through. We had to fix this—I had to fix this,
When I arrived at the ranch, the place felt so different. The once vibrant atmosphere seemed dampened, as though the land itself could sense the tension. Aria was here, I knew it. But I also knew that it was not just me who had to make things right–it was all three of us. The triplets. Aria had shut us all out, and we had no idea how to get back in.
I parked the truck near the stables, walking slowly toward the barn. As I got closer, I saw Aria through the window. She was standing still, her back to me, her posture rigid. Her arms were crossed tightly over her chest, and the look on her face was something I hadn’t seen before: cold, distant, angry.
She didn’t notice me approaching, so I took a moment to just watch her. Every step I took felt heavier, and the knot in my stomach tightened with each passing second.
“Aria,” I called softly, finally breaking the silence.
She didn’t turn at first, and I started to wonder if she even heard me. When she did, it was slow, deliberate, and with an expression that made my heart ache.
She looked at me as if I were a stranger. A stranger who had betrayed her.
I took a step closer, trying to soften my voice. “Can we talk?” I asked, but I could already tell it wouldn’t be easy.
She didn’t answer right away. Instead, she slowly turned to face me. I saw the walls–high, thick, impenetrable. “Talk about what, Enzo?” Her voice was colder than I expected. “What is there left to say?”
I swallowed hard. “I know I screwed up, Aria. All of us did. But we’re trying. We want to fix this.”
Her eyes hardened. “You can’t fix this,” she said quietly, but the intensity of her words hit me like a slap in the face.
I felt my heart drop, but I couldn’t back down. Not now. “I’m sorry,” I started, my words slow and deliberate. “We should’ve done better. We should’ve been there for you. All of us. I—I didn’t know how badly we hurt you until now.”
She shook her head, her gaze piercing. “You didn’t think to ask, did you? You just listened to her–Cassandra–like I wasn’t even worth the truth. You never thought about how it felt for me. Not once.” Her voice wavered slightly, but the anger was still there, stronger than the pain.
I felt a pang of guilt. The weight of her words crashed down on me. “Aria, we should’ve trusted you. We should’ve believed in you.”
She turned away slightly, her shoulders slumping as if the weight of it all was too much. “Yeah. You should’ve.”
The silence between us felt like a void. She wasn’t done, though.
“I didn’t come here to be with you, Enzo, she said suddenly, her voice trembling. “I came here because I needed space. From all of you. She paused, her eyes avoiding mine. “And I don’t want to be on the ranch anymore. I don’t want to be around you. Not like this.”
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Chapter 98
Her words hit me harder than I expected. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. This wasn’t just about me—it was about all three of us. All of de had failed her. And now she was done.
I reached for her, instinctively, but she took a step back. Arla 1 started, but she stopped me.
“No,” she said firmly. “I need to figure things out on my own. I need to be away from all of you.”
Her words stung. “But we can fix it. We can make it right,” I pleaded.
She shook her head slowly. “I don’t know if we can,” she said quietly, her voice cracking slightly. “Maybe I’m just too tired of trying. I just need to go home, my bags are packed already” And with that, she turned away, walking toward the gate of the ranch, leaving me standing there, completely at a loss.
I watched her leave, each step heavier than the last. She wasn’t just walking away from me. She was walking away from us all.
My chest felt tight, like something was suffocating me. I stood there, frozen in place, not knowing how to move forward. I’d thought I could fix things. But now, it felt like the damage had been done, and there was no way to undo it.
I watched as Aria spoke, and it felt like each word was a punch to my chest. She was hurting, and I could see it in her eyes–her anger, her disappointment. She wasn’t just angry with me, she was angry with all of us, and I couldn’t blame her. What we had done… what I had done, running those background checks, not standing up for her sooner… it had broken something inside her. Something I wasn’t sure I could fix.
The distance between us was suffocating, and it only grew with every word she said. Her voice was sharp, cold, like she was cutting herself off from us completely. And it hurt–more than I expected. More than I ever imagined it would. I had never seen her like this, never seen her so… closed off. The trust she had once given so freely was gone, replaced by walls I didn’t know how to tear down.
As she turned away, the air around us felt thick with the weight of everything unsaid. I could feel the space between us–the space she needed, the space I had put there. My chest tightened, knowing I was the one who had caused this. And I hated myself for it.
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