LOGINElena’s P.O.V.The rain in Los Angeles looked different from fifty floors up. Five years ago, rain meant damp coats, leaky ceilings, and the bone‑deep chill of a decaying apartment. Tonight, it was silent lightning against the reinforced glass of my Century City penthouse. I stood by the window with a mug of tea warming my hands and watched the city stretch beneath me. My pulse had finally begun to settle after the chaos of the boardroom. I had looked Adrian Voss in the eye and watched his world crumble. I had shut the elevator doors on his desperate face. It should have been enough. But restlessness still hummed under my skin like distant electricity. “Mum, look!” I turned from the glass. The tension in my shoulders melted instantly. David sat cross‑legged on the cream‑colored Persian rug, surrounded by a fleet of toy cars. He held up a red one, his dark hair falling across his forehead. He had my nose, my smile, my stubbornness. But the shape of his face and his eyes—the cle
Adrian’s P.O.V.“I hope you lose it all.” Elena’s words echoed through my penthouse, louder than the rain hammering the tall glass windows. I poured a third glass of scotch without ice and let it burn my throat. It didn’t help. Nothing could dull the free‑fall my life had become. She was alive. She was wealthy. She was Clara Everett. The woman I had broken—the woman I had paid to erase so I could protect my perfect empire—was the one holding the match, ready to burn it down. Every swallow tasted like her words—sharp, final, deserved.“You became a monster to save an empire, and you still lost it all. What a tragic irony.” Her mocking voice looped in my head. The fact that she was right was what hurt the most. I had wired five million dollars to make sure her uncle kept her quiet, desperate to save my empire, only to walk into my fiancée’s apartment and find Isabel in Dorian’s arms. I had destroyed Elena for absolutely nothing. Even worse, her child hadn’t been mine. Dorian had
Elena’s POV."Hello, Adrian. I believe we have a wedding to discuss." The words left my lips smooth as glass. I watched the exact second the air vanished from Adrian Voss’s lungs. Five years ago, his stare had stripped me bare, leaving me crying in his office while he accused me of extortion. Now his gaze couldn’t even scratch the surface of the silk suit I wore. He took a step back. Color drained from his face, leaving him looking like a ghost haunting his own legacy. His jaw worked, but no sound came out. He was staring at my dark eyes, at the shape of my face, searching for the girl he’d treated like a liability to be settled and forgotten.She wasn’t here. I had buried her long ago. "How—" Adrian finally managed, his voice cracking. "Elena?" Before he could speak again, the heavy mahogany doors behind me swung open. A wave of deep voices and expensive cologne spilled into the room. The board of directors had arrived. I turned away from Adrian, severing eye contact just as D
Adrian’s POV.Five Years Later.My grandfather’s voice filled the study before I had even stepped all the way inside.He never shouted. Magnus Voss didn’t need volume, authority lived in his silence.“So, this is what you’ve become?” he asked, eyes fixed on the papers spread across his oak desk. “A man who waits for things to happen instead of making them happen.”I stopped just inside the doorway, keeping my hands at my sides.“Grandfather, I—”He raised one finger without looking at me, and I fell quiet.“Five months,” he said. “It has been five months since Clara Everett appeared on the shareholder registry.”Only then did he lift his head.“And what do I have to show for it? Nothing.”His gaze pinned me in place. I had stood before him countless times, but somehow the years never lessened the weight of his scrutiny.“Meanwhile,” he continued slowly, “Donovan Cross is already sending her flowers.”My jaw went tight. “I’ve tried to contact her. Her lawyers shut down every call, ever
Elena’s POV.Two weeks had passed since the night I walked out of my uncle’s house.Life had settled into something fragile but my own.I was living in the small apartment my parents once owned before the accident. It was the one Uncle Richard had called an embarrassment to the family name. After they died, he locked it and left it to decay.Now it was mine again.The wallpaper peeled in long strips. The sink leaked if I turned the tap too far. At night, the heater groaned like some buried machine learning to breathe again.Still, it was better than the Hartman house. Here the air belonged to me.Most mornings started with nausea that came like storms. Pregnancy had turned my body into something unpredictable. I was fine one moment and doubled over the next. When the sickness passed, I scrubbed. Dust coated everything from years of neglect. Cleaning gave my hands somewhere to put the fear.I had arrived with nothing but a suitcase and two thousand dollars I’d hidden away for years. Co
Elena’s POV.My knuckles were raw from knocking.Still, I kept hitting the door. "Uncle! Please, open the door!"The heavy wood didn’t shake. Not even the handle moved. Each strike sent dull pain up my arms, but I hardly felt it anymore. My throat was already hoarse from shouting, from begging, and from trying to make someone in that room hear me."Please!"Nothing. Only the faint, cruel ticking of the grandfather clock at the end of the hall. Each tick felt deliberate. It was counting down the last moments of my life as I knew it.My arms finally dropped. Strength poured out of me like air from a cut balloon. I slid down the wall and folded onto the floor, pressing my back against the cold paneling.Exhaustion and fear settled deep in my bones.I buried my face in my hands and tried to silence my sobs.I couldn’t stop replaying the sound of the study door slamming earlier when Uncle Richard stormed out to meet Adrian. I’d let myself hope, even then. I hoped that the man who once look







