AARON’S POV
The moment the door shut behind Vivienne, a suffocating stillness descended over the Blackwood mansion.
I laid frozen in the center of my bed, surrounded by shadows and silence, the kind that pressed in on your skin and made your heartbeat sound like thunder.
The door clicked shut behind the guards who had escorted Viv out, and I twisted the lock with a finality that made my knuckles sting.
The envelope she’d flung at me like a weapon lay on the floor, its contents scattered like the remains of a cruel truth bomb.
I didn’t touch it at first. I couldn’t.
I turned away, clenching and unclenching my fists like I was trying to hold onto the last remnants of my control. But that envelope called to me. Not out of curiosity, not even out of anger—just this aching need for a
