Chapter 4

As Liam walked away to answer Ava' s call, my phone lit up with a message from him.

My driver will take you home. The black card is yours. Buy yourself something nice.

A payoff. A severance package for a decade of my life. The cold, transactional nature of it made me sick to my stomach.

I didn' t reply. I moved through the penthouse like a phantom, collecting the few personal items I kept there. A book, a change of clothes, a framed photo of a younger, more naive version of myself. Each item felt like a relic from a dead civilization.

My phone buzzed again. Another text from Liam.

I hope we can still be friends, Scar. You mean a lot to me.

Friends. The word was so absurd, so insulting, it almost made me laugh. Ten years of loving him, fighting for him, building his empire in the shadows, and he wanted to downgrade me to a "friend." The rage was a hot, bitter flood in my chest. I wanted to smash the phone, to scream, to tear this perfect, sterile apartment apart.

Instead, I took a deep, shuddering breath and typed a single word back.

No.

The rain continued to beat against the windows, a relentless rhythm matching the pounding in my head. I couldn't sleep. The bed, which had felt like a sanctuary just hours before, now felt vast and empty.

I closed my eyes and saw him. Not the cold stranger he had become, but the boy I met ten years ago. He was hungry then, not just for food, but for success. He had nothing but a brilliant, dangerous idea and a fire in his eyes that promised to burn down the world. I had a mind that could build his vision into a reality. We were two sides of the same coin.

I remembered a night, years ago, sitting in our cramped, rundown apartment, fueled by cheap coffee and ambition.

"When we make it, Scar," he had said, his voice full of conviction, "when this thing is bigger than anyone can imagine, I' m going to marry you. We' ll have a house by the sea, away from all this."

It was a promise whispered in the dark, a promise he had either forgotten or chosen to ignore. A promise he was now giving to someone else.

The illusion was shattered. The man I loved didn' t exist anymore, or maybe he never had. I had been in love with a potential, a dream he had sold me.

I sat up, the decision made. I was done chasing ghosts.

It was time to go home. Home to the life I had run from. Home to my family' s tech firm, a legitimate empire built on innovation, not illicit dealings.

I booked a one-way ticket to San Francisco.

The next morning, I walked out of the apartment for the last time. I didn' t take the driver. I called a cab. I was dressed in a simple pair of jeans and a plain t-shirt, my hair pulled back in a ponytail. I looked like the girl I was before I met Liam O'Connell.

I had one last stop to make. His new headquarters, the glittering monument to his "legitimate" success. I needed to see it one last time, to burn the image into my mind as a reminder of what I was leaving behind. It was a final, quiet act of goodbye.