Adrian’s first words were exactly what I expected.

“Serena, where are you?”

I stared through the hospital window.

“Why?”

There was a pause.

“You haven’t been home for six days.”

Six days.

It had taken my husband six days to notice his wife was missing.

I almost laughed.

“I’ve been busy.”

“With what?”

“Getting divorced.”

Silence.

For the first time since I’d met Adrian Shaw, I heard his breathing change over the phone.

“What did you say?”

“I told my family to contact yours. Our marriage contract has almost reached its agreed term anyway. There’s no reason to extend it.”

“Serena.”

His voice dropped.

“Where are you?”

I looked at the discharge papers in my hand.

“That no longer concerns you.”

I hung up.

Ten minutes later, Adrian called again.

I rejected it.

Then again.

Rejected.

On the seventh call, I switched off my phone.

I had spent our marriage chasing reactions from him.

Now I didn’t want even one.

I returned to my apartment instead of the military residence.

That evening, someone knocked on the door.

I knew who it was before opening it.

Adrian stood outside in uniform.

He must have come directly from the base.

His expression was still controlled.

But his eyes weren’t.

They moved over my face, my pale lips, then down to the way I was standing carefully.

“What happened?”

“Nothing.”

He stepped forward.

I blocked the doorway.

Adrian frowned.

“Let me in.”

“No.”

His gaze hardened.

“Serena.”

“General Shaw.”

Something flickered across his face.

I’d never called him that at home.

“Why are you speaking to me like that?”

“Because that’s what you are.”

“And what am I not?”

I smiled.

“My husband. Not for much longer.”

His jaw tightened.

“Did your father hit you?”

I said nothing.

Adrian reached toward me.

I stepped back instinctively.

His hand froze in midair.

“Turn around.”

“No.”

“Serena.”

There was steel in his voice now.

For three years, that tone could make an entire command room fall silent.

I simply looked at him.

“You don’t get to order me anymore.”

Then my robe shifted slightly.

He saw the bandage beneath it.

Adrian went completely still.

“What did they do to you?”

The temperature in the hallway seemed to drop.

“Family discipline.”

His face changed.

Not dramatically.

Adrian Shaw never did anything dramatically.

But I knew him well enough to recognize fury when his eyes became that quiet.

“How many?”

“I didn’t count.”

He walked past me.

“Where are you going?”

“To the Vale house.”

I grabbed his sleeve.

“No.”

He looked at my hand.

“They hurt my wife.”

I laughed.

The sound stopped him.

“Your wife?”

I released him.

“Interesting. Clara calls, and you abandon me in the middle of the night. My father beats me because I ask to leave you, and suddenly I’m your wife?”

His face emptied.

“Clara?”

I looked directly into his eyes.

“I saw you at Nocturne.”

For the first time, Adrian had no answer.

“I investigated her.”

His pupils contracted.

“I know everything.”

“Serena—”

“The border mission. The cake. The drones. Your family. Your relationship.”

Each word seemed to strike somewhere his armor couldn’t protect.

“And I know why you married me.”

Adrian finally said:

“It wasn’t like that.”

“Wasn’t it?”

“Our families arranged the marriage.”

“Because they wanted you separated from her.”

He didn’t deny it.

That hurt more than denial would have.

I nodded.

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For finally being honest without saying anything.”

I closed the door.

Adrian stopped it with one hand.

“Serena, listen to me.”

“No.”

His expression tightened.

“I have never betrayed our marriage.”

“You loved another woman throughout it.”

“I fulfilled every responsibility I had toward you.”

I stared at him.

And suddenly I understood why our marriage had always felt so lonely.

To Adrian, love was responsibility.

Protection.

Money.

Solving problems.

If I destroyed eighteen cars, he settled the damages.

If I was arrested, he collected me.

If I wanted something, he bought it.

He had given me everything except the one thing I had spent three years begging for.

His heart.

“I don’t want your responsibility.”

My voice became quiet.

“I wanted you.”

Adrian’s fingers slowly slipped from the door.

“And you were never mine.”

I closed it.

This time, he let me.

The divorce negotiations began three days later.

The Shaw family resisted.

My family resisted even harder after discovering Celeste’s suggestion that she could replace me wasn’t taken seriously.

But I had stopped caring.

I wanted nothing from Adrian.

No property.

No compensation.

No military connections.

Only my freedom.

Then Clara came to see me.

She was prettier up close than in the investigator’s photographs.

Quiet.

Elegant.

Nothing like me.

“I heard you’re divorcing Adrian.”

“Yes.”

Her fingers tightened around her purse.

“Because of me?”

“Partly.”

She lowered her eyes.

“I didn’t intend to destroy your marriage.”

“You didn’t.”

She looked surprised.

I smiled faintly.

“You can’t destroy something that was never alive.”

Clara went pale.

Then she whispered:

“He still loves me.”

I expected pain.

Instead, I felt tired.

“Then take him.”

Her head snapped up.

“I don’t want him anymore.”

That almost made me laugh.

So that was the tragedy.

Adrian had sacrificed the woman he loved to satisfy his family.

Married a woman he didn’t love.

And after four years, Clara didn’t even want what he’d sacrificed everything to preserve.

I stood.

“Our conversation is over.”

“Serena.”

I stopped.

“Adrian talks about you.”

I turned.

Clara’s expression had become strange.

“Constantly.”

I frowned.

“He complains that you’re reckless. That you never follow rules. That you make him worry. That you sleep sideways and steal his blankets.”

My chest tightened despite myself.

Clara continued:

“The Adrian I knew never talked that much.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

Her smile was bitter.

“Because when he came to save me at Nocturne, I thought maybe nothing had changed.”

She looked toward the window.

“Then I realized he kept checking his phone.”

I remembered that night.

“He was waiting for you to call.”

I said nothing.

Clara walked past me.

At the door, she stopped.

“He loved me once.”

Her voice softened.

“But I think somewhere along the way, while he was busy being your perfect husband, he forgot to notice that he had started loving you.”

The door closed.

I stood there for a long time.

Then I laughed.

Too late.

Two weeks later, the divorce agreement was placed before us.

Adrian sat opposite me.

He looked thinner.

I signed first.

He stared at my signature.

“Serena.”

I put down the pen.

“What?”

“If I refuse to sign?”

“I’ll file formally.”

“And if I keep refusing?”

“I’ll wait.”

Something in my answer hurt him.

Maybe because waiting was the one thing Adrian understood.

His fingers closed around the pen.

“Are you leaving Port Haven?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“Abroad.”

“For how long?”

“I don’t know.”

His control finally cracked.

The pen snapped between his fingers.

Everyone in the room froze.

I stared at him.

Three years.

Three years I had tried to make Adrian Shaw lose control.

I had raced cars.

Provoked scandals.

Sat on his lap in front of soldiers.

Whispered obscene things in his ear.

Nothing.

Now all I’d done was say I was leaving.

Blood appeared where the broken pen had cut his palm.

Adrian didn’t seem to notice.

“Don’t go.”

I almost hated him for saying it now.

“Why?”

His lips moved.

No answer came.

I stood.

“Exactly.”

Adrian suddenly grabbed my wrist.

“Because I don’t want you to.”

I looked down at his hand.

“That isn’t love.”

“I know.”

His grip loosened.

His voice was almost inaudible.

“I don’t know how to love you.”

My eyes burned.

Finally.

The truth I’d spent three years trying to force out of him.

I smiled sadly.

“Then learn.”

Hope appeared in his eyes.

I finished:

“With someone else.”

I pulled my hand free.

Adrian signed.

Three days later, I left the country.

Four years passed.

I became an artist.

I lived in Paris, Florence, New York.

I painted.

I traveled.

I dated.

I tried very hard to forget the general who had never known how to love me.

Then came that August afternoon in Port Haven.

The elevator doors opened.

I stepped out before Adrian could see my face.

Or so I thought.

“Serena.”

My feet stopped.

That voice still knew exactly where to find me.

I slowly turned.

The men behind Adrian immediately became silent.

Adrian stared at me.

Four years had sharpened him.

He was still immaculate.

Still controlled.

Still devastatingly handsome.

But his eyes were different.

There was no Clara in them.

No resignation.

Only me.

He walked toward me.

I raised an eyebrow.

“General Shaw.”

His mouth tightened.

“You’re back.”

“For a while.”

“How long?”

I smiled.

“Why? Planning my schedule already?”

One of his officers coughed to hide a laugh.

Adrian ignored him.

“I heard you’ve been seeing someone.”

There it was.

I stared at him.

“Are you jealous?”

Four years ago, he would have told me jealousy was irrational.

He would have changed the subject.

He would have hidden behind discipline.

Instead, Adrian looked straight into my eyes.

“Yes.”

I stopped breathing.

His men looked as if someone had detonated a bomb inside the elevator.

Adrian continued calmly:

“Extremely.”

I laughed despite myself.

“Four years too late.”

“I know.”

“And what are you going to do about it?”

He stepped closer.

“Something I should have done when you were still my wife.”

“What?”

For the first time in my life, I saw Adrian Shaw smile without restraint.

“Go crazy.”

Then he walked past me.

No grabbing.

No demands.

No request that I forgive him.

Just before the elevator doors closed, he looked back.

“I waited four years, Serena.”

I folded my arms.

“That doesn’t mean I’ll take you back.”

“I know.”

The doors began closing.

His gaze never left mine.

“But this time, I’m the one chasing.”

The elevator disappeared.

My heart was beating far too fast.

I hated that.

I hated him a little too.

But as I walked toward the hotel lobby, I caught myself smiling.

Adrian Shaw had once told me that even if I knocked down the sky, he would hold it up for me. Pasted markdown

Four years later, I finally understood what I wanted from him.

I had never needed him to hold up the sky.

I had wanted him to be willing to fall with me.

And judging by the look he’d just given me, the perfect General Shaw had finally learned how.