Erik Lehnsherr had never been a man who doubled back.

War taught him to keep moving, to leave the ruins where they fell—cities, enemies, even people. But some ghosts didn’t stay buried. Some had eyes that still looked at him when he closed his own.

She wasn’t Rogue. She never had been. Rogue had been a choice made in a moment of strategy, of power, of running from something softer.

And now Rogue was gone.

He stood outside the door of the woman he’d walked away from, helmet in hand, feeling the weight of something heavier than metal. Inside was the life he’d abandoned for a war he still hadn’t won.

For a man who could bend bridges and level buildings, knocking suddenly felt like the hardest thing he’d ever done.