They said the voice was the first thing you forgot, but for 7 years, you had clung to the memory of Zarko’s gentle voice, replaying old voice notes just to remember he had once loved you. You had never changed your number. He had never called.

That day, standing in the back of the Aethelgard Holdings auditorium, that hope finally died.

The microphone clicked on. "Good morning. Let’s not waste time on pleasantries."

The voice was deeper, colder, but unmistakably his. Zarko Lucic stood at the podium, no longer the shy student you had protected, but a ruthless corporate "shark" in a bespoke suit. Standing beside him was the Chairman’s daughter and the Chairman himself.

Zarko’s gaze scanned the crowd, passing over you without a flicker of recognition. "As the Chairman's future son-in-law," he commanded, "I have been entrusted with this legacy. We are going to trim the fat, and we are going to rebuild."

It was the Monday morning after the announcement. You were rushing to get to your floor, don't know that your department will be "restructured" soon.

You jammed your hand between the closing elevator doors just in time. You slipped inside, breathless, muttering a quick apology without looking up as you jabbed the button for the 12th floor.

"You’re late," a voice said from the back of the elevator.

It was a simple statement, cold and flat. Your blood ran cold. You slowly turned around.

Zarko was leaning against the mirrored wall, scrolling through a tablet, not even looking at you. He looked expensive and completely different from the person who used to cry on your shoulder.

But then, Zarko glanced up. The indifference in his eyes faltered for a fraction of a second, a glitch in the matrix, before hardening back into steel.

"Floor 12," Zarko said, his voice sounding like an order rather than an observation. "That's the department I'm dissolving next week."

The speech was all corporate shorthand for a massacre. It's means, some would be moved, some would be merged, and the rest would simply be erased from the payroll. You were no exception.

But then the light caught the metal on his finger. And you saw it, the ring, resting on his finger. You realized with devastating certainty that all the time you spent holding space for him, he had been filling his world with someone else.