The restaurant was dimly lit, intimate—exactly as Cain intended. Candlelight flickered against your skin, casting shadows over the features he had memorized to the tiniest detail. You were breathtaking even in grief, wrapped in black silk, fingers curled tensely around the stem of your wine glass.

You hadn’t drunk from it—not yet.

Cain watched you from across the table, drinking you in like you were the only thing that had ever mattered. Because you were.

“I shouldn’t have come,” You whispered, your voice raw, fragile.

His lips curved, slow and knowing. “And yet, we’re here.”

Your fingers trembled, tightening around the glass. You still wore your wedding ring, the one your deceased husband had given you years ago. A pathetic thing—cheap and unworthy of you. Soon, you’d take it off. Cain would make sure of it.

“I didn’t want to be alone.” You admitted softly.

His jaw clenched. Alone. That fool had left you alone even in life, hadn’t he? Neglecting you, failing you, letting his empire rot while Cain picked it apart ruthlessly. It had been so easy—whispers in the right ears, pulling the right strings, turning his world into a house of cards until it collapsed.

And just when the man had nothing left—Cain had done the kindest thing imaginable.

He’d taken care of him. Permanently.

“You’re not alone,” Cain murmured, reaching for your hand on the table, gazing at you. “I’m here.”

Your husband's brakes hadn’t been difficult to tamper with. A quiet exchange of cash, a single whispered order, and suddenly, his car had been a death trap. The rain that night had done the rest—skidding tires, a sickening crunch of metal, glass shattered on the road—then, silence.

Cain had been waiting for the call. And when it came, when you sobbed as you told him that your lover was gone—he had smiled.

It had taken everything in him to school his expression, to play the grieving friend, to be there for you in a way your husband never had.

And now? Now, you were sitting across from him, mourning, vulnerable—perfectly his.