The master suite of the Moretti mansion smelled of cedar, expensive cologne, and a silence that felt heavier than lead.

The rain had turned into a steady downpour by the time Lucien’s town car pulled up outside a modest, unassuming apartment building in a quiet residential neighborhood in upstate New York.

He didn't know why he came here. Maybe it was habit. Maybe it was the desperate, pathetic need to see her face one last time before his world completely dissolved.

He sat in the car across the street, watching the second-floor window where a warm, yellow light spilled through the lace curtains.

Through the glass, he could see her.

Elena was wearing an oversized gray sweater and dark leggings, her hair tied back in a loose ponytail. She was standing in a small, bright kitchen, carefully unpacking a box of dishes while humming softly to herself. Her belly was noticeably rounder now, a visible symbol of everything he had thrown away for a moment of arrogant carelessness.

As he watched, a tall, kind-looking woman—an aunt or a neighbor—walked into the kitchen and handed her a mug of tea. Elena smiled—a real smile, open and relaxed and completely free of the quiet, defensive tension she had worn like armor during their final years together.

Lucien gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned white.

He had everything a man could possibly want. Power, money, fear, respect. And he had traded it all because he believed his wife was a permanent fixture—a piece of furniture he could rearrange whenever it suited his whims.

He reached for the door handle, his fingers trembling, preparing to cross the street, to knock on her door, to beg for forgiveness on his knees.

Then he stopped.

He looked down at his own hands—hands that had signed execution orders, handled blood money, and held weapons of intimidation. What right did he have to step into that light? What kind of monster would he be to bring his wreckage back to the only safe place she had finally found?