He shakes his head. “I never wanted this. It was always supposed to be you.”
“I know,” I say. “But I can’t lead it anymore. I’ll be here. But I can’t be him.”
“Your father,” he mutters.
“Any of them.”
A beat. Then something settles in his stance. Stronger. Rooted. “Fine,” he says. “But you start wearing tweed jackets and using words like ‘synergy’—I’m out.”
I huff a breath. “You say that like you’re not dying to build a matching empire of ethically sourced violence.”
He snorts. “At least mine’ll come with a wellness plan.”
Three Months Later
Hollister Genetics hums with life.
Machines click and whir. Voices echo the halls with purpose. It isn’t perfect—not yet—but it’s real. It’s progress. The kind that doesn’t need blood to fuel it.
Sasha walks the floor like she owns it—and she should. She’s head of the new pediatric genetics program now, leading trials that could actually save lives instead of ending them. She looks grounded. Confident. Like someone who survived something and came back sharper for it.
She passes me in the hall, ponytail swinging. “She’d be proud, you know.”
The words land heavier than they should.
Because all I can see is that tiny apartment—Violet gaunt and pale, the life drained from her piece by piece. That version of her, the one I left behind, is etched into me like a scar. And here I am, standing in a lab she believed in, trying to reclaim a piece of her light. Trying to build something that doesn’t destroy the person closest to it.
Fuck.
I have to go.
I leave without telling anyone. I get in the car and just… go.
The road stretches long and dark, the kind that strips everything down until all that’s left is thought and regret. Every mile forward, I hear her voice. See her face. The broken version—hollow-eyed, drifting down the sidewalk like she was already halfway gone—but also the other one. The girl who once believed she could save the world with science and stubborn hope.
I think of Serafina, too. Of how she loved without permission. Of what it cost her. Of what it taught me to fear.
But this isn’t fear.
It’s something else. Heavier. Steadier.
I don’t know what I’ll say when I see Violet. I don’t know if she’ll even look at me. But I know I’m not turning back. Not without trying.
Not until she knows I became the man her love deserved.
It takes me two hours to work up the nerve to walk into the coffee shop.
She’s sitting in the corner booth, laughing. Radiant. Three women I don’t know surround her, hanging on her words like she’s the gravity in the room.
The light in her eyes is back.
God, I missed that.
I wait until they leave. The barista gives me a nod on his way out and flips the sign toClosed. I step inside, lock the door behind me, pull the shade.
The room feels suspended—quiet in a way that demands truth.
She rises slowly from the booth. Doesn’t back away. Just stands there, like she’s bracing herself against a storm she isn’t sure she wants to weather.
