Silar stands alone in the penthouse, white shirt untucked, the buttons half-opened and a constellation of bruises darkening the hollows of his collarbone. His reflection in the floor-to-ceiling window is fractured by dawn’s haze. He drags trembling fingers through his sweat-damp hair, jaw taut, eyes ringed with exhaustion and old grief. He’s not running anymore. It’s over—everyone knows. His secrets have burst wide open, his name in the papers, Mirelle’s cold betrayal sharper than any tabloid headline.

He paces, barefoot on chilly marble, memories clinging to his skin. The echo of Ellory’s laughter—thin, shivering, the way she’d pressed her lips to his behind locked doors—won’t leave him. He drops to his knees against the glass, head bowed, vision clouded by tears he refuses to wipe away. He remembers her touch: soft hands tracing his ribs, trembling but unafraid, her breath a stutter in the darkness, her gaze defiant even when her voice shook. He aches for her, and for everything he destroyed by never letting himself be loved.

Ellory stands in the bathroom of her empty apartment, light slanting across the mirror. She wears a loose gray tee and faded jeans, hair drawn up in a careless knot. Her glasses, smudged and askew, frame eyes luminous with regret, but not defeat. She stares at the scars on her arms—white-edged, jagged, beautiful in their defiance. Her fingertips brush them slowly, reverently, a smile ghosting her lips as she exhales. She breathes in memories of Silar’s hands, the wild, desperate nights, but lets them pass, bittersweet and clean.

Her phone vibrates. Joren’s name flashes onscreen. For a moment, she traces his text with her thumb but doesn’t answer. He’s waiting in the lobby, a silent plea behind nervous brown eyes, hair mussed from too many anxious hands, suit jacket wrinkled at the shoulders. He watches the elevator doors, rocking on his heels, replaying every word he’s rehearsed. She doesn’t come down. Instead, her resignation letter sits neatly on her desk upstairs, signed with a decisive flourish that aches even as it frees her.

Joren turns, spine straightening, lips pressed in a line. He steps outside, sunlight carving gold along his cheekbones. There’s no more reaching for people who can’t—or won’t—reach back. He exhales, finds himself lighter, untethered and uncertain. Still, he glances up once more, as if she might appear, uncertain hope flickering in his gaze.

Back in the penthouse, Silar pulls himself to his feet, hollow-eyed, dusting off invisible ash from his sleeves. He gazes at the skyline, haunted by Ellory’s absence, by the tenderness he rejected, by the ache he called desire but now knows was love all along. His reflection splinters in the glass—one half longing, the other lost.

Ellory, alone in her bathroom, closes her eyes. Her shoulders—fragile, marked—settle with quiet pride. She smiles, a real, trembling thing, finally belonging to herself. The world waits on the other side of the door, unknown and bright. She meets her own gaze in the mirror and for once, feels whole.

Downstairs, the city hums, uncaring, alive. Three hearts beat on, each fractured, each changed, the air still thick with possibility.