Isabelle’s POV The message sat on my phone all night. Unread by anyone else. Unanswered by me. Just… waiting. I saw it every time I walked by the kitchen counter. Every time I picked up my phone to check the time. Every time I reached for a podcast or playlist or anything that would keep me from hearing the echo of his words in my mind. Just dinner. Just time. Just us. It was the “just us” that rattled me. Because “us” was never simple. “Us” was pages of court filings. A name I had to reclaim. A boy I had to raise alone. A fire I had to walk through barefoot. And now he wanted to pull up a chair and call it dinner? ⸻ Still, I didn’t delete the message. I didn’t block him. I didn’t say no. Because beneath the ache and memory, there was still something raw inside me. Something open. Not because I trusted him. But because a part of me still wanted to. ⸻ The next day moved slowly. I kept busy—work calls, meetings, a quiet lunch with Stephanie. But e
Isabelle’s POV The sky was a soft gray when the news broke. Muted clouds hung low over the city like a whisper. The rain hadn’t started yet, but the air smelled like it would. I stood barefoot in my living room, wrapped in a robe, coffee cooling in my hands. The television was on, but the volume was low. I didn’t need the anchors’ voices. I could read the scrolling headlines at the bottom of the screen. “BREAKING: Walter Blackwood Sentenced to 30 Years in Federal Prison. Kaia Whitmore to Serve 24 Years Without Parole.” I blinked once. Slowly. No smile curved my lips. No breath of triumph escaped my chest. Instead, I felt something else. Stillness. Not peace. Not quite. But a kind of silence that didn’t scream anymore. The war was over. ⸻ Stephanie arrived a few minutes later. She didn’t speak right away. Just handed me a small, folded piece of paper. It was a printout—someone from the legal team had emailed her the courtroom statement made by the judge.
Kaia’s POV They say time slows when you’re waiting for a verdict. They’re wrong. It doesn’t slow. It sharpens. Every second feels like a scalpel against your nerves—cutting, carving, exposing. And as I sat on the stiff wooden bench in the courtroom, heels planted, hands clenched in my lap, I could feel my entire life narrowing down to this moment. I didn’t look at Walter. We hadn’t spoken in weeks. Not since the video leaks. Not since the press started calling us “The Empire’s Collapse.” He tried to save himself by cutting me out of the narrative. I tried to burn everything down so no one walked away clean. In the end, it didn’t matter. Because the truth was bigger than both of us. ⸻ The courtroom was packed—press in the back, victims in the front, lawyers flanking us like exhausted soldiers who’d already lost the war. The judge read the charges again, not because he needed to, but because it was protocol. His voice was level, but there was weight behin
Isabelle’s POV Three days had passed since the gala. Three quiet, measured days, where I carefully stacked my schedule with everything but stillness. Meetings. School drop-offs. Calls. Planning an expansion proposal that had sat untouched for over six months. Anything to keep myself from thinking too much. Anything to keep myself from remembering the way Damion looked at me. Because even now, I could still feel it. That look of remorse, yes—but something else, too. Something deeper. Something closer to… hope. And that was the most dangerous thing of all. Hope. Hope was what made women like me return to broken places with stitched hearts and second chances. And I wasn’t ready for that. Not again. ⸻ Nathan had asked about him again. We were on the balcony Saturday morning. The sky was pale, the air still cool, and he was sitting cross-legged with his sketchpad while I sipped my tea. “Do you think Daddy’s still mad?” he asked suddenly, coloring in a rough
Damion’s POV There’s a kind of silence that follows regret. It’s not loud or sharp. It’s just there—settled into everything, in the way your coat hangs heavier, the way your coffee cools too fast, the way your name feels unfamiliar when someone says it with sympathy. That was the silence I’d been living in since the arrests. Walter. Kaia. It was over. The empire I grew up watching, helping build, helping protect—it had collapsed. And Isabelle… she’d been the one to bring it down. Not with rage. Not with fire. But with patience. With truth. And the unbearable part? I respected her more now than I ever had. Even when I loved her and failed her… I don’t think I ever truly saw her. Not like this. Not like the woman she became after I let her go. And now, every second that passed was a reminder that I had no place in her world anymore. Unless she let me in. ⸻ I sat in my office, the lights dimmed, the city stretching wide through the glass walls. The same
Isabelle’s POV It wasn’t until I stepped out of the Vanleigh Grand that I realized I’d been holding my breath all night. The cool night air hit my skin like a balm, sliding across my bare arms as the doorman handed me a small umbrella. The sky was overcast again, clouds heavy with the promise of another quiet rain. A part of me had hoped the weather would hold off—just long enough to make the evening feel less cinematic, less like the kind of night someone like Damion Blackwood would appear in like a ghost pulled from memory. But I suppose it didn’t matter anymore. He’d already gotten under my skin again. Just one sentence. That’s all it took. One sentence and the way he looked at me like I was the only thing keeping him tethered to this world. “You look beautiful tonight.” I told myself it was nothing. Just another carefully placed word. A script he’d practiced. But even as the car pulled up and I slipped inside, I could still feel the weight of his presence lingering