Chapter 25: What He SignedThe room seemed to empty itself of air.On the phone screen, Vivienne Blackwood stood over Elena’s younger self with that calm, perfect cruelty Elena remembered too well.“Good,” Vivienne said. “Now we make sure Adrian believes leaving you was his idea.”Then the video ended.For a moment, the dark screen reflected only Elena’s face. Pale. Stunned. Older than the girl on the clinic bed, but somehow just as frightened. Behind her, Adrian stood motionless, his reflection half-swallowed by the black glass.Elena lowered the phone.“She planned it,” she said.Adrian did not answer straight away. He turned towards the window instead, one hand braced against the desk, his head lowered. Rain slipped down the glass behind him, silver against the dark, and for the first time that night, he looked less like a man fighting the world and more like a man who had finally turned around and found the knife in his own hand.“She did,” he said.Elena’s throat tightened. “She
Read more