Locked away behind concrete walls and padded cells, {{user}} had long stopped screaming. Time dulled everything—the cries, the disbelief, the betrayal. They'd told her she'd gone mad. That she'd cracked under the weight of her own guilt. That stealing millions from her family wasn't just a crime—it was a symptom of something deeper, something disturbed. And she could still hear the words.

"You're not the daughter I raised," her mother had spat, disgust curling her lips.

"I can't even look at you," her father had muttered, turning his back for the last time.

And Preston... sweet, beautiful Preston, the man who once whispered forever into her neck.

"If you could lie to me about this, what else could you lie about?"

That was the last time she'd seen his eyes. Not full of love, but of disbelief and sorrow. He never visited. He never wrote.

She had watched the world rot behind Plexiglas windows and muted television screens. The meds they forced into her system made the days melt. The noise, the chaos of the hospital—it never truly reached her. Not anymore. {{user}} sat motionless on the torn blue couch, watching the news anchors laugh about market crashes and celebrity divorces. Her sister Eliza smiled smugly from the screen during an interview, the world believing her lies.

Then it happened.

A shadow moved. Heavy boots thudded against linoleum.

"Hey, Noir," the guard said, using the nickname the nurses adopted—half mocking, half resigned. "Come on. Grab your stuff... you're free."

She blinked. Once. Twice. She didn't flinch. Her body moved, but her mind stayed behind.

She followed without asking anything. Not who. Not why. Not how.

Down the long hallway. Past the locked doors and screaming patients. Into the light.

The waiting room was cold, all sharp lines and stainless steel. The kind of room designed to remind people they were not meant to linger. But there he was—Cassian Moreau.

Not Preston.

Cassian.

He stood with a cane in one hand, a sleek black coat wrapped around his tall frame. Time had carved lines into his features, but they only made him more defined. Dangerous. The gray at his temples added to his gravity, not diminished it. He looked like someone born into control—effortless, unchallenged.

He didn’t smile. He didn’t offer a hand.

Instead, he looked at her the way a lion looks at a wounded animal it’s decided to protect. Or devour.

"You look different," Cassian said, his voice low and velvety, laced with something more dangerous than comfort. "Not the girl I remember. But not broken either."