Aidan sat in the driver's seat of the black Maybach. The cabin was pitch black, illuminated only by the faint, ghostly blue glow of the dashboard dials.
His breathing was ragged. His tie hung loose around his neck. Brent's confession played on a continuous, torturous loop in his brain.
It was a lie.
He dragged a shaking hand down his face, trying to crush the violent mix of euphoria and devastation tearing his chest apart. She hadn't betrayed him. She had been his the whole time.
His phone vibrated on the console. A text from Jennings. Target exiting elevator now. Parking level B2.
Aidan's hands clamped down on the leather steering wheel. His knuckles popped in the silence.
He stared through the tinted windshield at the metal elevator doors fifty yards away. His eyes narrowed, predatory and hyper-focused.
With a soft ding, the elevator doors slid open. A pool of warm, yellow light spilled across the dirty concrete.
Julianna stepped out.
Aidan's lungs stopped working.
She wore a beige trench coat. Her head was bowed, her hair falling softly around her face as she clutched the strap of her bag with one hand. The other hand pressed her phone to her ear. Her brow was furrowed in frustration.
He drank her in. He devoured every line of her body, every familiar curve that hadn't changed in eight agonizing years. The hunger inside him was a physical ache in his gut.
Then he saw it. The way she moved.
She was limping.
A slight, almost imperceptible hitch in her stride. A protective favor of her left leg. Her ankle was wrapped in a nude compression bandage, barely visible beneath the hem of her coat.
Aidan's eyes dropped to her knee. A fresh, angry scrape marred the skin there. The image of her falling—of her bare knee slamming onto abrasive concrete—flashed through his mind unbidden. It was the same knee she had clutched earlier, the same raw wound he had glimpsed from behind the wheel just hours ago.
The sight of it now, still bleeding faintly through a thin layer of hastily applied ointment, sent a jagged bolt of something primal through his chest. He had caused that.
No. He hadn't known. He had sat in this very car, frozen by eight years of poisoned silence, watching her stumble and bleed while he played the role of a dead-eyed ghost.
His fingers curled into the leather steering wheel until the stitching groaned.
She was limping toward the far side of the garage, where a row of modest sedans sat in stark contrast to his Maybach. Her voice echoed faintly off the concrete walls. She was arguing with someone.
Aidan's mind raced. In the hours since she had walked away with that man—Orville—she had gone upstairs, attended a meeting, and come back down. And she was still hurting. Still favoring the leg that had twisted in the grate. Still bearing the mark of his silence.
He needed to touch her. He needed to prove she was real, to undo every second of the distance he had enforced in this very garage.
He reached for the door handle.
His thumb pressed the unlock button. The soft thud of the disengaging locks echoed inside the cabin.
Julianna stopped walking. She had reached her car. A beat-up silver sedan with a dent in the rear bumper. She fumbled with her keys, the phone still pressed to her ear.
Aidan pushed the door open. The cold air of the garage flooded the cabin.
He stepped out.
The sound of his shoe hitting the concrete made her flinch. She whirled around, her eyes wide with the same startled terror he had seen in the rearview mirror hours ago.
Her gaze found him in the dim light. Recognition hit her face like a physical blow. Her lips parted. Her phone slipped from her ear.
Aidan took a step forward. His hands were open at his sides. Unarmed. Unmasked.
"Julianna."
His voice was raw. It scraped past the eight-year-old knot in his throat.
She took a step back. Her injured leg buckled slightly, and she grabbed the roof of her car for support.
"Stay away from me," she whispered. It wasn't anger in her voice. It was fear. Fear of the man who had stared through her like she was a stranger while she bled at his bumper.
Aidan stopped. Self-hatred flooded his veins. He had done this. He had turned himself into the monster in her story.
The sound of heavy, running footsteps echoed through the garage.
Aidan's eyes snapped to the stairwell. Orville burst through the door, a paper bag of takeout in one hand, his cheap suit jacket flapping behind him. He skidded to a halt as he registered the scene—Julianna braced against her car, Aidan standing twenty feet away like a predator frozen in headlights.
"Hey!" Orville shouted, rushing forward to put himself between them. "Back off!"
Aidan didn't move. He didn't look at Orville. His eyes stayed locked on Julianna's face. On the way her chest rose and fell with panicked breaths. On the way her hand gripped the edge of the car roof like a lifeline.
He had spent eight years building walls of ice and steel. He could not tear them all down in a single parking garage. Not like this. Not with her looking at him like he was something to run from.
He took a step back. Then another.
"Julianna," he said again, softer this time. "We need to talk."
She shook her head. Tears welled in her eyes, but she blinked them back with a ferocity that made his heart splinter. "You had eight years to talk, Aidan. Eight years."
She yanked open her car door. Orville hovered at her side, his expression a mixture of confusion and protective fury.
Aidan watched her slide into the driver's seat. He watched her jam the key into the ignition with trembling hands. He watched Orville rush around to the passenger side, throwing one last glare over his shoulder.
The engine turned over. The silver sedan pulled out of the parking spot.
Aidan stood in the empty space it left behind. The exhaust fumes curled around his ankles. The silence of the garage pressed down on him like a physical weight.
He pulled his phone from his pocket with numb fingers. He hit a speed dial number.
"Jennings," he said, his voice dropping back to absolute zero. "I need every address. Every place she's lived in the last eight years. Every job she's had. Every friend. I want it all."
He ended the call.
He walked back to the Maybach, slid into the driver's seat, and closed the door. The cabin swallowed him in darkness once more.
He sat there for a long time, staring at the empty parking space where she had been.
Eight years of silence had ended tonight. But the real war had only just begun.
