Sleep didn’t come that night.
I paced the apartment above the facility until the floorboards groaned under my steps. My head throbbed with every memory Asher had dragged up — the past, the lies, the secret I’d buried so deep even I barely let myself think about it anymore.
But now, it wasn’t just ghosts haunting me.
It was real.
Detective Rowan. The investigation. The walls closing in.
And at the center of it all — Asher Beaumont, smiling in his chains like he’d already won.
I wanted to believe I could still fix this.
I wanted to believe I was stronger than him.
But when dawn broke pale and cold over the horizon, I knew what I had to do.
⸻
The facility felt colder than usual when I stepped inside.
Mara spotted me in the corridor, her eyes sharp with concern. “Are you okay? I hea
