Thunder was not the beginning of the storm. Long before the first rumble tore through the sky, there was a hush—the kind that slipped through the air like a warning. Emilia felt it before she even opened her eyes that morning, a strange tightening in her chest, a prickling on her arms. The silence in the penthouse was too deep, too expectant, as though the building itself sensed something gathering on the horizon.
She had barely slept. How could she, when the contract sat on her bedside table demanding her attention like a living thing? Even with the lamp switched off, she felt its presence—heavy, cold, and suffocating. A reminder that her life was changing again, reshaping itself into something she did not recognize. A reminder that Adrian Lockwood was not a man who surrendered easily, n
