The hallway seemed to shrink around them, the fluorescent lights flickering faintly as if hesitant to illuminate the truth. Helena’s eyes never left Lucian, standing there with that familiar calm, that smug control that had haunted her for years. Ares and Atlas flanked her, their bodies taut, ready—but she knew the real battle wasn’t physical this time. It was memory, guilt, and the past colliding with the present.

Alina’s hands gripped the console in the penthouse basement, eyes ...