If he had spared me even one moment of actual attention, he would have seen it. The pallor. The way I held myself. The surgical bracelet still on my wrist. He would have known.
But he didn't look. He never looked. His world began and ended with Adrian Winslow, and everything outside that circle was furniture.
I laughed. The sound came out wrong, cracked down the middle, and the tears followed before I could stop them, sliding down my face while the needle drew blood from my arm for the woman my husband loved more than he had ever loved me.
Julian Moretti. If you love her that much, then I will give you what you want. From this day forward, we are nothing to each other. No debt. No name. No blood between us. Mountains and oceans apart, and not a single thread left to pull.
When I walked out of the hospital I found a restroom first. I fixed my makeup with steady hands, checked my reflection twice, confirmed that nothing on my face would betray what had happened inside those walls. Only then did I drive to the Moretti compound.