Caden's POV
The air in the master suite was thick with the scent of lilies, a cloying, suffocating perfume that seemed to cling to the velvet drapes and the expensive new rugs.
I stood by the balcony, the night air cool against my skin, watching the moonlight pool on the floorboards where Serena had once stood.
It had been days since she left, and the house felt wrong. It felt hollow, as if the very foundation was groaning under the weight of an emptiness it wasn't built to sustain.
Liliana was asleep in the center of the massive bed, her breathing rhythmic and soft. She looked like a painting of innocence, a fragile thing that needed protecting.
Yet, as I looked at her, I felt that familiar, gnawing ache in the back of my skull—a dissonance that I had been trying to suppress for w
