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The grandfather clock in the master hallway chimed 2:00 AM. In the absolute silence of the Vale estate, I slipped out of my twin-sized guest bed—twenty feet away from Adrian’s sprawling king suite—and knelt beside the loose floorboard in the closet. / Chapter 9 / 10

Chapter 9 - Kneeling at My FeetThe boardroom emptied in seconds. Only Charles, Adrian, and I remained.

Adrian crawled across the carpet toward me, his hands reaching out as if touching a ghost would make me vanish.

"Lily, please... Look at me," he begged, tears carving wet tracks down his chiseled face. "I was blind. I was a monster. Every day for fifteen years, I cursed God for taking you away. And when you were right here... I pushed you away."

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The neon lights of Queens buzzed with a harsh, flickering hum that matched the relentless ache in Clara Vance’s temples.

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“Are you a firefighter?” seven-year-old Lucia had asked, coughing into the smoke that was curling under the bathroom door like dark fingers.

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I looked down at the billionaire CEO—the man who ruled the city, the man who had broken my heart a thousand times over.

"You told me old habits die hard, Adrian," I said, stepping backward out of his reach. "My old habit is surviving without you. And I'm not stopping now."

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