The island felt like another world.
A world suspended in silence, wrapped in salt air and guarded by pines that whispered secrets with every breeze. There were no clocks ticking. No phones ringing. No photographers hiding in bushes or headlines breathing down her neck.
But the peace was a lie.
Elowen sat in the guest room, laptop open, files glowing on the screen—Rowan’s empire in digital form. His empire, his destruction, and the cold fingerprints of Celeste pressed into every c***k.
She zoomed in on a signature.
Her father’s.
The man who had once held her hand through nightmares now stood beside her husband in the construction of a dynasty built on manipulation and silence. That knowledge should’ve broken her years ago.
Now, it fortified her.
“El,” Elijah’s voice drifted in from
