Prologue
Want or Need is hard to differentiate when you're in the situation of aching loneliness, where even toxicity feels like comfort. Confusing love with survival, mistaking dependency for devotion. Chasing someone who once made you feel alive, even if it now hurts. Losing yourself in someone else's presence, unsure if it's passion or possession. Wanting to be chosen so badly, you forget to choose yourself.
In moments like these, "I want you" and "I need you" blur into one until you step back, breathe, and learn the difference between being loved and being used.
Callista Evangeline Moreau's POV:
Aurelius Valemont—cold, brilliant, dangerous. They call him a villain, a leader, a legend. But they don't know the boy who lost everything. The son raised by cruelty, the brother who kept crying out in silence, the man who hides his grief behind blood and power.
To the world, he's the heir to a criminal empire. To me, he's something else.
I don't know when it started. Maybe when I saw him crying over his sister. Or maybe when he called himself broken and meant it.
Whatever it is... I can't look away.
And maybe that's where all of this really begins.
I still remember the first time I met Aurelius. Not at a gala, not at a fancy university hall, but at the living room when my father forced me to marry him because he was threatened by this same man who's going to "ruin" my life. He flirts like a maniac and terrifying at the same time and I was like, "Damn, who is this guy?"
Turns out, that "guy" was the son of Victor Valemont, the man behind one of the most dangerous underground organizations in the world.
We were supposed to be enemies. Or at least on opposite sides of something huge. But somehow, the lines blurred. Between rivalry and fascination. Between danger and trust. Between him and me.
He always wore that mask. Not a literal one, but the kind that made you think he didn't care. Stone-faced. Precise. Unreadable. But behind closed doors, when the world wasn't watching, you could see it in his eyes—the weight he carried. Like he had been bleeding for years, just quietly, and no one ever noticed.
Not until now.
I wasn't trying to fix him. Let's be clear. He's not a puzzle that wants solving, or a wound begging to heal. He doesn't even believe in healing. But sometimes, I think he believed in me.
Just enough.
He never talked about his past. Not unless you caught him at 3 A.M., half-asleep, holding onto a memory like it might fade any second. He'd whisper names I didn't recognize. Tell stories with no endings. And sometimes, he just sat there. Quiet. Breathing. Existing. As if that in itself was a battle.
His world is made of shadows, of enemies and allies and people who switch sides when it's convenient. He was raised to trust no one. Not even himself.
But he trusted me.
Enough to let me in.
Enough to fall apart in front of me.
And that... that changed everything.
They say love doesn't belong in war zones. But we didn't have a choice. Our war wasn't just on the outside. It was inside us, too. A war between who we were and who we were becoming. A war between want and need.
Because I wanted him. But I needed to survive.
And sometimes, the hardest choice is picking between the two.
So if you're reading this looking for a fairytale, this isn't it.
But if you're looking for truth, the kind that hurts and heals, the kind that strips you down to the bones, then keep going.
This is the story of a man who lost everything. And the girl who tried to remind him he still had something left.
Even if that something... was just her.
But sometimes, all I could say is "I want you" rather than "I like you", and "I need you" rather than "I love you"
Because "like" feels too shallow for the fire in my chest,
And "love" feels too fragile for the storm in my soul.
I want you not just to hold your hand, but to lose myself in your chaos.
I need you not just because I'm weak, but because without you, even strength feels hollow.
Maybe it's not the right way to feel. Maybe it's not the healthy kind of love.
But it's real. Raw. Mine.