Adrian’s POV
The night bled into morning without sleep.
I sat in my office, staring at the city, the skyline fractured by glass and steel. A battlefield, I’d once thought. But it wasn’t the city that unsettled me—it was her. Sophie.
The whiskey on my desk was half-empty. Elena’s perfume still lingered faintly in the air after her late-night visit, but instead of distracting me, it only grated against my nerves.
Sophie hadn’t come down again. She hadn’t dared to knock. She had obeyed me.
And I hated it.
Because her silence was worse than her fire.
Her absence screamed louder than any accusation. It pressed against my ribs, a quiet punishment I hadn’t expected her capable of delivering.
By dawn, I was still awake, staring at the skyline. Voss’s shadow stretched further every day, and
