The silence of the penthouse was no longer peaceful; it was the quiet of a tomb after the grave robbers had left. Nora stood at the floor-to-ceiling window, the sprawling, glittering city below a monument to a victory that felt like a defeat. Three months. Ninety-two days of breathing the sterile, filtered air of a life without him. The Volkov Group thrived. The "Iron Queen" and the "Prodigy Heir" were media darlings, a narrative of female resilience spun from the ashes of the Demon's reign.
It was all a beautiful, gilded lie.
Sasha entered the living room, her movements quieter, more deliberate than they used to be. Grief had sanded down her sharp edges, leaving a polished, somber young woman in their place. She held a tablet, the screen displaying the latest soaring quarterly profits.
