Chapter 4

The morning air at the St. Jude's Cemetery was biting, a cold, wet chill that settled deep into my marrow.

I had a bouquet of white lilies in my hand—meant for a life that had ended before it truly began.

I stopped dead when I saw them.

Two men in work boots were hacking at the earth around my child's marker, shovels grinding against the soil.

Panic, jagged and hot, ripped through me.

I dropped the lilies and sprinted across the grass, colliding with one of the workers as I reached the plot.

I scrambled to the hole they'd started digging, my hands plunging into the dirt to shield the urn that had already been unearthed.

"What are you doing?" I screamed, clutching the ceramic to my chest. "Get away from here!"

The workers backed off, looking confused.

"We're just following orders, lady. Rook's head of security told us to clear this plot. Says the boss needs the space for a pet interment. A cat."

The world tilted. My heart wasn't just breaking; it was liquefying in my chest.

I pulled my phone out with trembling fingers, my vision blurring as I dialed Draven.

He picked up.

"Make it quick, Lira. I'm in the middle of a meeting."

"Draven," I choked out.

"Why are there men in the cemetery digging up my baby's grave?"

There was a pause.

"Maren had a nightmare," he said, his tone shifting into that condescending.

"She dreamt her cat, Luna, was cold in the ground. I told her I'd find her the best spot in the family plot. It's for her peace of mind, Lira. Don't be difficult."

I bit my tongue so hard I tasted iron.

"You're digging up the ashes of our child for a dead cat? Have you lost your mind?"

"Stop it," he snapped, his irritation spiking.

"You're always so selfish. You have a brother, a best friend, a home. Maren is alone in this city. That cat was her only comfort for three years, and you want to deny her that because you're feeling petty? I'm moving the ashes to the ancestral plot in the countryside. It's better for them, anyway. Think before you speak."

Selfish.

The word hung in the freezing air, a verdict.

The coldness inside me crystallized into something hard, indestructible, and entirely void of love.

"No," I whispered. "You don't get to touch them again."

I hung up. I stood up, cradling the urn against my coat, shielding it from the wind.

"You're not going to a family plot, baby," I whispered to the ceramic. "Mommy is taking you home. Just us. Always."

I didn't go back to the villa. I didn't go back to the life I had built for him.

I walked into our house—the house Draven had "built" for me, filled with the traps of a domestic fantasy—and felt nothing but contempt.

I looked at the walls where he'd hung our photos, the kitchen where I'd stood waiting for him for years, the bed where he'd held me while his heart belonged to a ghost.

I stripped the rings from my fingers. I placed them on the coffee table, right next to the divorce papers I'd drafted months ago but lacked the courage to serve.

I didn't pack much. My life had been reduced to a carry-on and the heavy weight of the urn in my bag.

I walked out the front door, leaving it to pull shut with a heavy, final thud.

I never even glanced over my shoulder.