The firelight from the penthouse hearth licked against Liam’s profile, sharpening the edges of his jaw, his cheekbones, the shadows under his eyes. The photograph was already in the flames, curling black at the edges, the scarred man’s face distorting and breaking apart.
Ava stood a few feet away, arms wrapped loosely around herself. It should have felt final — the physical evidence destroyed, the ghost reduced to ash. But finality had a strange way of feeling empty.
“He’s gone now,” Liam said without looking at her. His voice carried the kind of certainty meant to end the conversation. “Forget him.”
Her gaze didn’t leave the fire. “And if I can’t?” she asked, her voice, sounding far away.
“You can,” he said, more firmly this time. “You will.”
The flames ate through the last sliver o
