|Serena's POV|
The room is dark, save for the city lights bleeding in through the sheer curtains—ghosts of a world that keeps spinning while mine stays splintered. I'm cold. My fingers are numb, even beneath the silk of the blanket. And I know I'm dreaming, but I can't wake up.
Not yet.
His hands are around my throat again.
Donovan.
The smell of whiskey and sweat, of expensive cologne masking something rotted underneath—it's everywhere. My nails claw at air that doesn't come. My heels scrape against the concrete of the basement floor, cold and damp, beneath the Vance Penthouse. I remember the leak dripping near the boiler, how it echoed in the silence right before his voice turned to gravel and his grip bruised me.
"Little slut," he snarled. "You think Gryphon would save you? He does
