LOGIN"I don't want to go back to what we were," she said. "I'd burn it down before I let that happen." Her chin lifted slightly. "So whatever this is," she said, "it has to be something we've never been." "From the ground up." The air between us had changed. Nothing had moved to change it. My finge
Edward's POV A flight of stairs. Elena's door was ajar when I reached the landing. I pushed it open and stepped inside. She was at the window. Coat still on. I shrugged mine off and set it on the chair by the door. The click of the latch made her shoulders tighten once before they released. "Y
Thursday. The registry doors opened before I fully reached them, air still adjusting around the gap, carrying paper dust and ink heat and the low sound of decisions being processed without ceremony, none of it pausing for me. My name came almost immediately. Not because I was expected—because the
Alicia's POV Apartment light warmed the room before I crossed the threshold. Elena stood at the counter, spoon tracing slow circles through a pot resting on low heat. Steam rose in thin strands, breaking apart under the ceiling light before it could gather into anything defined. My shoes paused b
Edward's POV I didn’t remember walking into the estate. I remembered the gate. Then nothing clean after that—just fragments of motion stitched together without pause. Headlights fading into the drive. The slow roll of tires over stone. The way the house lights adjusted as if it had already antic
The car didn’t stop at the main entrance. It passed the glass frontage of the building, continued past the visible entry point, and turned into the service approach that only functioned as an entrance once the guard stepped aside. No signage. No announcement. Just controlled access. I didn’t que
Edward's POV The first call went out before seven. Short. Both people already knew what needed to be said and neither wasted time getting there. I ended it and moved to the next name on the list. The second call was different. This one needed handling. The person on the other end had been sitting
"The witness may step down." I crossed the room. Back past the partition. Sat. The technician moved to the front. The screen descended from the ceiling at the far end. Something in the room changed before a single frame appeared. That collective shift of people who understand that something is abo
Alicia's POV Cole didn't pause. Didn't shuffle papers. Didn't let the room fall back into whatever Lucy's lead had left behind. He was already standing. "Ms. Valentine." His voice carried nothing performative in it. No architecture. Just direct. "You walked out of the board meeting that afterno
Alicia's POV The judge looked at her papers. The room held. I had been in this chair since nine o'clock. Through the cross-examination. Through Cole's redirect. Through seven months of my life laid out on a table for twelve strangers to weigh. Through footage of a corridor I had walked out of bef







