Eleanor James' Pov
This is crazy.
No, this is insane.
It all happened so fast that my mind couldn’t keep up. One minute he was talking— my husband, my partner, the damn President of Astria standing at that podium with his usual fierce composure, and the next?
He crumpled.
Collapsed like a marionette with its strings cut.
The scream that tore from my throat wasn’t planned. It wasn’t First Lady Eleanor speaking. It was just me, Eleanor. The woman who loved him. The woman who didn’t know how to live if Devon James wasn’t beside her.
Now I’m in the back of a moving ambulance, sirens blaring so loud it sounds like grief itself. I sit hunched forward, both of my hands in mine, heavy, limp, cold. No pulse. No strength. Not even a twitch of resistance.
“Come back to me,” I whisper, voice t
