Enough mistaking restraint for disappearance.
I don’t get to undo what I did.
But I do get to decide who I am from this moment forward.
And I am still Derek Pierce.
Not because of my title.
Not because people defer.
Because I remember how to hold a line—and this time, I hold it without hiding behind it.
From now on, I act like it.
Every room.
Every decision.
Every silence that matters.
Not to prove anything to her.
Not to deny that I’m fallible.
But because this is who I am—unapologetically.
And I won’t let anyone, including myself, forget it.
Chapter Thirty-Six
AUDRA
The building feelsthe same when I step inside.
That’s the first thing I notice.
The hum. The familiar rhythm. Conversations overlapping just enough to sound alive without being invasive. Phones ringing. Footsteps on marble. Someone laughing too loudly near the elevators.
Normal.
I hang my coat, badge in, and take the elevator up with my posture already set—shoulders back, breath steady. I don’t rush. I don’t brace.
I refuse to let the calm I earned dissolve just because I’m back.
My office door is open.
Inside, everything is as I left it.
Except the flowers.
They’re everywhere.
Not one arrangement. Not two. But several—lined along the credenza, tucked into the corner table, balanced carefully on the windowsill where the light won’t scorch them. Different blooms. Different colors. All fresh.
I stop just inside the doorway.
One for each day I was gone.
