Rafael's POV
The morning light filtered through the curtains of my office, casting long shadows across the desk where I'd been working since before dawn. I hadn't slept much, couldn't, not with everything spinning in my mind like a storm that refused to settle.
Maliya's face when I'd told her the truth kept replaying in my head. She'd looked at me like I'd just rewritten her entire reality, which, I suppose, I had.
“I didn't kill your father.”
Those words had hung between us like a grenade with the pin pulled, and I'd left before the explosion. I needed her to process, to think, to come to terms with what I'd revealed.
But now, sitting here in the growing morning light, I wondered if I should have stayed. Should have explained everything immediately instead of leaving her with half-tr
