Just then, Tang Fei looked up from her work and caught Huo Ting Cheng's eye through the glass. She enthusiastically waved, pointing at a screen and mouthing, "This one is amazing!"
Huo Ting Cheng's expression transformed in an instant. The Arctic cold melted into a look of tender indulgence. He raised a hand in a gentle wave back to her, a perfect display of spousal support.
Then, without looking at the three men again, he murmured, his voice barely audible over the city's hum, "Look at her. So alive. So brilliant. I will not let the world touch her. I will not let the past claim her. If that makes me a monster in your eyes, then so be it."
He turned and slid the balcony door open, stepping back into the light and warmth of the penthouse office, leaving his most loyal confidants in the gathering dark, burdened with the knowledge that they were now complicit in the beautiful, tragic undoing of everything they had helped him build.
