The words hung heavy between them, thick with everything unsaid and unforgivable.
“You were never meant to love him,” Roman continued, his voice lowering, turning intimate in the most dangerous way. “You were meant to come back to me. Everything I did—every single move—was to tear him down so you could finally see what you’ve been denying.”
Liana’s eyes glistened, but she refused to let a tear fall. Her spine straightened instead, resolving hardening where pain once lived. “You humiliated him using a secret that never hurt anyone,” she said, every word steady, deliberate. “You turned poverty into a crime.”
“He lied to get power,” Roman snapped, the restraint in him slipping. “That makes him weak.”
“No,” she shot back fiercely. “That makes him human.”
Roman’s lips curled, his expressio
