Adrian's POV
I didn't say anything for a long time.
Lena sat in the chair beside my bed with the particular stillness of someone who had just set down something heavy and was waiting to see what happened next. She wasn't performing composure. She was just — still. The way she was still in every hard moment I had watched her navigate in the past week.
"He closed New York to you," I said.
"Three hospitals. Three rescinded offers. All within six weeks of the annulment." Her voice was even. "I thought it was timing. I never looked closely enough to see the pattern."
I thought about my father sitting across from me at boardroom tables for five years, discussing strategy, discussing the empire, discussing everything except the woman he had systematically erased from her own city. I thought
