When Love Turns to Ash Novel – Chapter 21
Jax stared at me, shocked by the venom in my voice, the utter lack of pity in my eyes. This wasn’t the Savvy he knew, the girl who’d looked at him with stars in her eyes. This was a woman forged in the fires he’d set.
“You got exactly what you deserved, Jax,” I said, my voice cutting. “Now, if you’ll excuse us.”
I turned to walk away, Mateo’s arm protectively around my shoulders.
Jax stumbled after me. “Savvy, please!”
Mateo stopped, turning to face Jax. His usual gentle demeanor was gone, replaced by a cold, hard anger. He stepped in front of me, shielding me.
“You heard her,” Mateo said, his voice low and dangerous. “Leave.”
I leaned into Mateo, drawing strength from his presence, a clear, unspoken message of where my loyalties, my life, now lay.
Jax looked at Mateo, at his protective stance, and a flicker of something – recognition? – crossed his face. He’d stood like that for Chloe, once. So fiercely, so blindly. The irony was a bitter pill.
“You will not bother Savannah again,” Mateo stated, his voice like chilled steel. “She has a new life. A life that doesn’t include you.”
“He’s irrelevant, Mateo,” I said, my voice clear and dismissive, loud enough for Jax to hear. “Let’s go.”
The word “irrelevant” hit Jax harder than any physical blow. He was nothing to me now. Not even worthy of hate. Just… irrelevant.
Humiliation washed over him, followed by a crushing wave of defeat. He had no power here. No leverage.
“Given your recent financial… embarrassments,” Mateo continued, his eyes glinting, “I’m sure you wouldn’t want any legal complications. Harassment, stalking… these things have consequences, Mr. Harding.”
I smiled up at Mateo, a genuine, loving smile, then kissed his cheek. A deliberate display, a final severing.
Jax was left alone on the busy Milan street, the sounds of the city fading into a dull roar in his ears. The snow had begun to fall, soft, white flakes covering him, a cold, indifferent blanket.
He had lost. Completely.
Years passed.
My brand, SAVVY, became a global name.
Mateo and I built a life filled with love, laughter, and shared creation. He proposed on a starlit night in Tuscany, with a ring he’d designed himself, a single, perfect diamond held in a delicate embrace of gold that echoed my kintsugi tattoo.
I had transformed. The broken girl was gone. In her place stood a woman, strong, resilient, happy.
My tattoo, a reminder not of pain, but of healing, of the beauty found in embracing imperfections.
I often reflected on my journey. The pain of the past had been a crucible, forging me, shaping me, leading me to this life, this love.
It was a necessary darkness that allowed me to appreciate the light.
One day, a thick, worn envelope arrived, forwarded from Ben. An Austin postmark. No return address.
Inside, a letter. Posthumous. From Jax.
He’d died a few months prior, alone, in a charity hospital. Cirrhosis of the liver.
The letter was short, his handwriting shaky.
It contained a few faded photographs – me at sixteen, baking cookies; a candid shot of me at a Night Howlers gig, my face alight with adoration for him.
“I was a fool, Savvy,” he’d written. “You were the only real thing in my life, and I destroyed it. I see that now. Too late. I hope you found happiness. You always deserved it. – J.”
I looked at the photos, at the ghost of the girl I once was, the man he had been.
No anger. No sadness. Just a distant, detached acknowledgment. It was all too late. So very late.
I walked to the ornate fireplace in our Milanese studio, the one Mateo had designed.
Without hesitation, I tossed the letter and the photos into the flames. Ashes to ashes.
Mateo came in, wrapping his arms around me from behind. “What was that, amore?”
“Just an old song ending,” I said, turning in his embrace, my eyes bright, focused on him, on our future. “So, about that new project in Kyoto…”
We stood together, looking out at the city, ready for whatever came next.
Outside our window, in the park below, children were playing, their laughter echoing in the crisp air.
A new generation, full of hope, full of new beginnings.
For a fleeting moment, I saw her – my younger self, sixteen and full of impossible dreams.
She smiled at me, a knowing, peaceful smile.
And I smiled back.
I was finally whole.
<end>
Read More Shorts Novel from here.