Noah’s POV
The smell of blood was finally gone, replaced by the sterile, expensive aroma of Italian leather and filtered oxygen. I sat behind the mahogany desk on the 64th floor of Vaelor Holdings, staring at a digital spreadsheet that held the livelihoods of ten thousand employees.
I hadn't slept. I hadn't even showered properly until an hour ago, scrubbed raw to get Julian’s filth off my skin. My jaw still ached from the tension of the previous night, and the hurt in Aria's eyes. The way she pulled back from my touch on the porch was a persistent ache in my chest.
I couldn't be in that house. Not with Cassian drinking himself into a stupor, not with Elena’s silent, irritating presence, and certainly not with Aria, whose eyes now looked at me like I was just another monster in a su
