The storm broke at dawn.
Rain carved cold veins down the glass walls of the penthouse, streaking the city in gray and silver. Ethan stood before the window, shirtless, his knuckles bruised from a fight he hadn’t meant to start. His reflection stared back—hard, hollow, and tired.
He had survived humiliation. He had built empires from ashes.
But what tore at him now wasn’t the ghosts of his past.
It was Ava Langston.
Her name pulsed through his mind like a curse and a prayer.
He’d told himself he could handle her—her defiance, her pity, her bleeding loyalty to the family that had spat on him. But the image of her standing in that hallway the night before, rain-soaked and shaking, wouldn’t leave him.
“You think you’re the only one who’s broken?” she had whispered, and the look in her e
