[Ava's POV]
The silence that descended after Rhett’s words was not a true silence. It was a suspension, a held breath in the wake of a detonation that had left no crater in the concrete, only in the architecture of their souls. The air in the penthouse seemed to thicken, to hum at a frequency just below hearing, saturated with the psychic aftermath of what they had become.
It was the ghost of synced heartbeats fading into a phantom echo, the visceral imprint of trespassed emotions like fresh brands on the spirit, the unspoken, irrevocable knowledge that the very concept of ‘alone’ had been edited from their dictionary. The bond was no longer theory, or threat, or potential. It was atmosphere. It was gravity. It was the fourth, silent occupant of the room, breathing in the spaces between
