And just like that, four months passed.
Four whole months of fragile, tentative happiness that felt almost stolen from fate itself. If someone had asked Raya to describe those a hundred and twenty days in a single sentence, she would have called them the happiest days she had ever spent with Adrian.
There were still moments when doubt crept into her heart like silent, unwelcome shadows in the dead of night. Moments when she woke suddenly in the middle of the night, heart racing and mind spinning, staring at the ceiling as the weight of reality pressed down on her chest. In those quiet, vulnerable hours, she would wonder how long this fragile peace could possibly last. How long before the cracks in their world widened into chasms? How long before Adrian's dangerous empire, his complicated obligations, and the ghosts of his past pulled him away from her again?
