The apartment was a mausoleum of broken memories and half-truths.
Alina stood in the doorway of the old penthouse she once owned in Prague—a property under a false name, left untouched since before Nicholas.
Dust lay thick on velvet. The mirror was cracked. The silk robe still hung over the armchair like a ghost she forgot to bury.
But it wasn’t the past that chilled her.
It was the scent of her.
Venom 2.0 had been here.
Not just passing through.
Living.
Nicholas leaned against the doorframe, his side still stitched and bruised. But his eyes never left Alina.
“Why this place?”
“Because this is where Scar died,” she whispered.
“And Alina was born.”
Venom had left more than a message this time.
The mirror bore a new signature—“I remember what you forgot.” But that wasn’t the wor
