Aurora’s POV
The room smells like dust and broken things.
Concrete powder still hangs in the air, scratching the back of my throat every time I breathe in. Somewhere behind me, sirens wail, distant, unreal—like they belong to another life, another woman who hasn’t just watched her world collapse in real time.
Jake stands a few feet away, his suit immaculate despite the chaos around us. Not a speck of dust on him. Not a c***k in his calm.
He looks at me the way someone looks at a wounded animal, careful, measured, almost kind.
Almost.
“Aurora,” he says softly, stepping closer. “I’m so sorry. I know how much this project meant to you.”
My hands tremble at my sides. The building behind us, my building, lies half-crumbled, steel bones exposed like a ribcage torn open. Months of work. Y
