I cling to her for a moment, then pull back and pick up my bag before leaving. The taxi ride to my apartment feels strangely surreal, like I’m watching myself from the outside. The building looks the same. The lobby smells the same. The elevator hums the same way it always has. Inside, the apartment is stale and dusty. It’s been too long since I was here. The air is heavy from closed windows and old air.
I drop my bag by the door and begin to move on instinct. I open every window I can reach. Cold air rushes in, carrying the faint sounds of the street below. I turn on music low on my phone, something neutral, background noise, and get to work.
I vacuum. I dust. I wipe down surfaces that don’t really need wiping. I strip the bed and make it up with fresh sheets. I scrub the bathroom sink with unnecessary force.
Nothing helps.
My hands are busy, but my mind is out of control. It will not quiet. It will not stop replaying everything. Matteo’s words. Lucien’s admission. The news anchor saying the word execution over and over again on the news. Stacy saying there is no choice. Lucien saying he loves me.
I stand in the middle of the living room and look around. It’s just a small flat. Walls, windows, furniture. It should feel like mine. It doesn’t. It feels like a place I ran to, not a place I live in.
I go to shower again, more out of restlessness than need, then pull on an old sleep shirt and crawl into my bed. The sheets smell faintly of lavender fabric softener, but I miss Lucien at my side. The ability to curl into his heat and breathe deep his scent.
I curl up on my side, hugging a pillow to my chest. If I stay with Lucien, I’m choosing a man who kills to protect his own. If I walk away, I’m choosing a life where I’m safe from that world but never truly whole. Which betrayal is worse? Betraying my morals, or betraying my heart?
I stare at the wall until my eyes blur. I don’t have an answer. Not tonight, perhaps not even tomorrow. I close my eyes and listen to the city outside my window, hoping that sleep might bring clarity.
It doesn’t.
TWENTY-SEVEN
LUCIEN
I throwmyself into work like it’s the only thing keeping me upright. Two days of nonstop meetings and contract reviews, restructuring shipping routes, reviewing staffing, approving invoices. The kind of mindless intensity that keeps my hands busy and my mind from drowning. It almost works. Almost.
The news continues to run outside my office door, but thankfully no one has spoken my name. Not once. Not in rumor. Not in speculation. Good. Let them chase ghosts. Let them build theories and hunt shadows. They will find nothing that leads back to me.
I sit at my desk and stack another set of papers out of habit. The office is unusually quiet behind the closed door, but I’m not alone. Stephen, Franco, Mace, Gabriel, and Anthony sit scattered around my office, pretending to read reports or review files, though none of them has turned a page in the last ten minutes.
They’re waiting.
Eventually I sigh and lean back in my chair. “You can stop pretending,” I say. “If you have something to ask, then ask.”
Stephen doesn’t hesitate. “Did you do it?”
I hold his gaze. “Yes.”
There is no gasp. No shock. Only a subtle shift in posture, the settling of something they already expected. Franco nods slowly, jaw tense. Mace crosses his arms. Gabriel lets out a breath, as if confirming something heavy. Anthony just watches me quietly.
Stephen meets my gaze. “All right. Then we talk about what happens now.”
“We do,” I say. “If anything comes back on me, you take control. Stephen, you run Moretti Global. Franco oversees international shipping. Mace handles logistics and Gabriel assists Anthony with security. Everything stays clean. Everything stays legal. The company can’t fall because of me.”
Gabriel shakes his head. “We aren’t letting you go down for this.”
“I don’t plan to,” I say dryly. “But we don’t leave things to chance.”
Franco leans forward. “Why, Luce? We know you hated him, sure, but this isn’t you. It hasn’t been you for a long time.”
The words hit harder than he knows. They force me to look at the reality I’ve been trying to ignore. “He was never going to let Briar go,” I say. “Not ever. He told her she belonged to him. That he would always want her. That he would destroy anyone she tried to love.”
“And you believed that,” Mace says quietly, not accusing, simply confirming.
“Yes,” I answer. “He would’ve killed her eventually, played with her with his fist until he hit too hard and she never got back up again. He would’ve killed me, or one of you. The man was unhinged and needed to be eradicated.”
Anthony rests his elbows on his knees. “You did what you had to do.”
Stephen nods. “We understand. We don’t blame you.”
