He told me to leave, but the ruins of our love story held me prisoner.
The command echoed in the silence he left behind. Pack a bag. You’re leaving tonight. Each word was a shard of ice in my heart. I stood frozen in the center of his cavernous living room, the scent of our frantic, angry coupling still clinging to my skin, a cruel mockery of the chasm that had just been ripped open between us.
My father. With Alistair.
The information was a bomb, detonating the last of my composure. My father, in his fragile, confused state, was with the man who had framed him, the man who had possibly orchestrated a murder. Panic, cold and sharp, lanced through me, momentarily overshadowing the devastation of Lysander’s rejection.
I moved on autopilot, my body numb. I stumbled into the bedroom I’d be
