Adrian’s POV
The drive from Victoria’s penthouse to Ava’s apartment should have taken twenty minutes. Somehow it felt like an hour. Every traffic light seemed longer than usual, every red light felt personal, and every memory Victoria had dragged out of me refused to stay where it belonged. By the time I pulled up outside Ava’s building, I was more exhausted than I had been after some of the worst business negotiations of my career.
I remained seated inside the car for several seconds after the engine died. The city moved around me without pause, people hurrying down sidewalks, taxis blaring their horns, delivery trucks blocking entire lanes as if they owned Manhattan. Everything looked normal. Meanwhile my thoughts felt like a battlefield.
Victoria had changed. That was the problem.
T
