The next morning, the city was wrapped in a soft gray fog. The kind that makes everything feel quieter, slower, like the world itself was holding its breath.
Liam didn’t notice.
He’d been in his office since dawn, the steady hum of the AC filling the silence. The glow from his laptop screen cast long shadows across the room. He hadn’t slept much not after the night before, not after seeing her again.
Rosemary.
It had been years since he’d even heard her name, but the moment she appeared at the door last night, drenched from the rain and trembling, it was like every memory he’d buried clawed its way back up.
Her voice had cracked, her hands shaking as she whispered,
“Liam, I didn’t know where else to go.”
He’d wanted to tell her to leave. He really had.
But her eyes the same ones th
