Aiden's POV:
The water was still.
Too still.
I stood at the edge of the cliff, soaked to the skin, shoes abandoned, fingers trembling in fists I couldn't unclench. My breath came slow and shallow, like my lungs refused to take in air she wasn't breathing.
Caitlin.
Gone.
She didn't scream when she jumped. She didn't flinch. She just looked at me with eyes full of everything I couldn't give her, and let go.
Like she knew it would destroy me.
And maybe that was the point.
I never cried. Not even when my mother died… Not when my father left. Not when the board tried to burn down my empire from inside out.
But as I stood there dripping, the scent of her still clinging to my skin like a curse, my chest fractured in quiet, invisible ways. My vision blurred. I tasted salt, and I didn't
