CHAPTER 73 — THE WAR MOVES INTO THE LIGHT
The gala did not end when the music softened and the guests began to drift away.
For Elena, it was only the beginning.
She remained beside Adrian near the tall floor-to-ceiling windows long after the orchestra had slowed its tempo, her fingers resting lightly against the cool glass. Below them, the city stretched endlessly, streets glowing with artificial light, traffic flowing in steady lines like veins carrying lifeblood through something vast and unfeeling. From this height, everything looked distant. Controlled. Predictable.
And yet nothing felt that way anymore.
The echo of Victor Hale's voice still lingered in her mind—not loud, not openly hostile, but deliberate in the way men spoke when they believed they already held the upper hand.
You're the complication.
The words replayed themselves, again and again, sinking deeper each time. She didn't know whether they unsettled her or fortified her. Perhaps both.
