The night air wraps around me like a sigh when we step out of the bar. I can still hear the faint hum of music behind us, the soft murmur of conversations resuming as if nothing had happened. But something inside me feels irreversibly shifted — like a page has turned, quietly but completely.

Roman opens the car door for me. “You okay?” he asks, his voice low, careful.

“I am now,” I answer, and I mean it. The confrontation, the chaos, the look on Chase’s face when he realized ...