Five years.
The weight of that span of time struck Dylan Brooks with the force of a slow, suffocating tide.
Five entire years—years he had not been there, years she had endured alone, years filled with fear, exhaustion, humiliation, and a kind of quiet resilience that no one should ever have been forced to cultivate in silence.
How, exactly, had she survived them?
The thought alone made his throat tighten. A sharp, aching heat welled behind his eyes, and before he could restrain himself, he pulled Sophie Walker into his arms, holding her with a firmness that bordered on desperation, as if loosening his grip by even an inch might allow reality to fracture again.
“Sophie,” he said slowly, deliberately, each word pressed out as if carved from stone, “these years… you’ve suffered far too
