Chapter 2

Elara's POV:

The only light in the desolate, rain-swept street came from a 24-hour coffee shop on the corner. Dragging my soaked, heavy bags behind me, I stumbled inside, leaving a trail of water on the linoleum floor.

The handful of patrons and the tired-looking waitress all stared. I ignored them, slumping into a booth in the far corner. My body was wracked with shivers I couldn't control.

"Just a black coffee," I mumbled when the waitress appeared, my teeth chattering.

When it arrived, I wrapped my frozen hands around the warm ceramic mug, trying to stop them from shaking. Cain's words replayed in my head on a merciless loop. *It's over. We're not from the same world.* Two years. Had it all been a lie?

I needed an answer. A real one, to his face. Calling him again was pointless.

My mind raced, and a name surfaced through the fog of pain: Leah. Our mutual friend. She had to know something.

I pulled out my phone, my thumb hovering over her contact. My voice was a raw, croaking thing when I finally called. "Leah? Do you know where Cain is?"

There was a pause on the other end of the line. A heavy, telling silence. "Elara... are you okay? I thought you knew."

"Knew what?" My stomach plummeted.

"It's... it's Cain's engagement party tonight," Leah stammered, her voice low and guilty. "At the Silvermane Estate."

"Engage...ment?"

The world spun. The coffee mug slipped from my nerveless fingers, crashing against the tabletop before shattering on the floor. Hot liquid splashed across my hand and seeped into my pajama pants.

The pain was a distant, secondary sensation. A dull throb on my skin that was nothing compared to the chasm that had just opened up in my chest.

"Oh my god, Elara, are you hurt?" Leah's voice was frantic through the phone's speaker.

I ignored the burning on my hand. "Who is she?" I asked, my voice terrifyingly calm. "Who is the woman?"

Leah hesitated. "Isolde Silvermane... of the Silvermane family. They're calling it the merger of the century."

Silvermane. I knew the name. Everyone on the East Coast did. They were old money, a dynasty of power and influence so vast it was almost mythical.

*We're not from the same world.*

Suddenly, his words made a sickening kind of sense. He hadn't just left me for another woman. He'd traded up. He'd climbed to a world so far above mine I couldn't even see the top.

"I'm so sorry, Elara," Leah rushed to say. "He told us all a few weeks ago, but he made us swear not to say anything. He said he was going to tell you himself."

A few weeks.

While I was making him his favorite dinner, while I was sleeping in his arms, he and all our friends were keeping this secret. They had already cut me out. I was already a ghost in my own life.

I didn't have the strength to reply. I just ended the call.

The waitress was there with a mop and a dustpan, her expression a mixture of pity and annoyance. I stared at the brown puddle and the broken shards of ceramic on the floor. It felt like a perfect metaphor for my life.

My fingers, still trembling, typed two names into my phone's search bar: "Cain Blackwood" and "Isolde Silvermane."

The top result was a press release from a major financial news outlet. The headline screamed at me: *Blackwood and Silvermane Forge a New Dynasty: A Union of Commerce and Bloodline.*

I clicked the link. A professionally shot engagement photo filled the screen. Cain, looking impossibly handsome in a tailored suit, stood beside a stunning blonde woman. Isolde Silvermane was regal, her beauty as cold and perfect as a statue. They looked like gods.

The article was filled with corporate jargon-"strategic alliance," "consolidating family assets," "pioneers of a new era." At the bottom, it listed the details of the celebration.

Location: Silver Crown Estate, on the edge of the Black Forest National Park.

Time: Tonight.

The ice in my veins began to boil. A furious, white-hot rage burned away the shock and the pain. He didn't even have the decency to break up with me to my face before celebrating his new life with her.

I wouldn't let him. I wouldn't let him erase me so easily.

I stood up, pulling the last crumpled bills from my coat pocket and slapping them on the table. My eyes, once filled with despair, now held a glint of steel. I pushed open the door and walked back out into the relentless rain.

I was going to that estate.

"Cain Blackwood, you owe me an explanation."