A return to the city
Like a memory that refused to fade, the city rose before them, a jagged silhouette of glass and steel that pierced the afternoon sun. It shimmered with a cold indifference, as if mocking the lives it had touched, broken, and remade in ways no one would ever fully see. Emilia pressed her forehead lightly against the SUV’s tinted window, her pale reflection flickering against the shifting skyline. She remembered the fear that had once gripped her whenever she had seen this city, the way her pulse had jumped in anticipation of meetings that could dictate her entire life, the contracts she had signed—or that had been signed on her behalf—the endless quiet power struggles, and a marriage she had never truly chosen. All of it had swallowed her whole, leaving her feeling li
