Chapter 16: The Man At The Gate
"Sir," Victor said again, hesitating.
"Open them," Adrian repeated.
The gates slid apart slowly, and Ethan stepped through them into the courtyard light. Nobody spoke. I stared at him, hardly recognizing the man standing there.
He was thinner than I remembered, his jaw shadowed by weeks of unshaved beard, his once-tailored suits replaced with plain, worn clothes. He didn't look like the confident man who'd left me at the altar. He looked like someone who'd been surviving instead of living.
"You look... alright," he said quietly, his eyes never leaving my face.
Anger, relief, confusion, and heartbreak collided inside me all at once, none of them strong enough to win out over the others. "So do you," I said, and we both knew it was a lie.
His gaze drift
