I had never seen him before.

Not in the memories I carried like scars. Not in the dreams that used to wake me in the middle of the night. Not in the long years when I felt myself quietly fading.

Soren Bellandi didn’t belong to any of it.

He wasn’t part of the Vale dinners, or the polite lies that dressed up betrayal. His name had never been whispered between Julian and Serena, never attached to the signatures that sold off my father’s legacy. He was new — to the company, to my story, ...