Lena's POV
The sitting room was warm. The lamp threw soft light across the coffee table and outside the fountain was still running and the mansion had settled into its late-night quiet. Marcus sat across from me with his folder closed now and his hands loose and he didn't fill the silence with anything.
He just let it be silence.
I hadn't known how much I needed that until I was inside it.
After a while I said: "He came to apologize."
Marcus looked at me but didn't speak.
"Aiden." I kept my voice even. "He stood at those bars and said everything he should have said years ago. His mother. Vanessa. The night he threw me out." I paused. "He said he knows what he did. All of it."
"And?"
"And I told him I heard him." I met Marcus's eyes directly. "Then I told him it doesn't change anyth
