The storm hadn't stopped since midnight.
It rolled over the city like a living thing wind clawing at the windows, lightning splitting the dark sky into jagged white veins.
Sebastian drove through it anyway.
Headlights cutting through the rain, hands gripping the wheel tight enough to leave dents.
He hadn't slept. He hadn't even blinked without seeing her face.
Isabelle.
He replayed every word she'd said before he left the house.
Every glance. Every touch.
The moment her voice cracked and she asked him, "What are you hiding from me?"
He'd been a coward then.
But not anymore.
"Perimeter scan shows heat signatures near the old industrial zone," Liam's voice crackled through the speaker. "One large structure. Two inside."
"Her?" Sebastian asked.
"One matches Isabelle's profile. The other" Liam hesitated. "Female. Age unknown. No match in our system."
Sebastian's jaw clenched.
"It's her."
He could hear the rain hitting the roof harder, the wipers barely keeping up.
"She wants me to come," he murmured.
"Sir?"
"She's luring me there. She knows I'll follow."
Liam's voice hardened. "Then it's a trap."
Sebastian's eyes stayed on the road, stormlight flashing across his face.
"I don't care."
The warehouse loomed ahead a black shape against darker skies, rusted and silent.
He killed the headlights and parked a few meters away. The air smelled like metal and wet earth.
The wind carried faint echoes a loose shutter banging, distant thunder, and beneath it all, the slow, rhythmic hum of a generator.
She was here.
He stepped out of the car, soaked within seconds, and started forward.
Every instinct told him to wait for backup.
Every memory told him it was already too late.
Inside, the warehouse was half in ruin.
Broken beams. Empty crates. Puddles reflecting thin slices of light from flickering bulbs.
He moved through the shadows with silent precision the soldier in him resurfacing effortlessly.
Then he saw it faint footprints on the concrete, smaller than his, still wet.
Isabelle.
He followed them past the broken stairwell, down a narrow hall until he reached a room lit by a single hanging bulb.
There was a cot.
A blanket.
And on a table beside it a glass of water and an open locket.
He picked it up slowly. The same locket Evelyn had once given him.
The same one he'd buried with her.
His heart stuttered.
"Evelyn"
From the corner of the room, a voice answered.
"I was wondering how long it would take you."
He turned.
She stepped from the shadows, hood down, rain dripping from her hair.
Older. Thinner. But those eyes those impossible eyes were the same.
For a second, neither of them spoke.
Sebastian felt his throat close.
"You're dead," he whispered.
"Almost," she said softly. "You were supposed to die with me."
"Evelyn"
She smiled faintly but there was no warmth in it. "You still say my name like it's a prayer."
He took a step forward. "Where is she?"
"In the next room." Evelyn tilted her head. "Sleeping. Safe. For now."
"For now?"
Her gaze flickered part sorrow, part rage. "You should thank me, Sebastian. I didn't kill her."
He felt the air shift old ghosts and new pain colliding in the charged space between them.
"You think this is justice?" he asked quietly. "Dragging her into our past?"
"Our past?" she repeated, voice trembling. "You mean your empire of lies? Your silence while they murdered my father? You think I didn't know?"
"They killed him because he tried to expose them," Sebastian said hoarsely. "I was trying to protect you!"
"By letting me die?"
"I didn't let you die!" he shouted, voice cracking with something raw. "I buried you because they showed me a body! Because I watched that car burn and there was nothing left to save!"
For a heartbeat, her expression wavered a ghost of pain flickering through her fury.
Then her eyes hardened again.
"You moved on," she said bitterly. "You found her."
His chest tightened. "I didn't find her. She found me."
"She looks just like me."
"She's nothing like you."
That hit deeper than any bullet could. Evelyn's lips trembled then curved into a cold, brittle smile.
"No," she whispered. "She's better. She's pure. Untouched by what we were."
She stepped closer, voice low, trembling. "And that's exactly why she'll break you, Sebastian. Just like I did."
He stared at her this woman who had once been his entire world, now a stranger wearing her face.
"Where is she?" he repeated quietly.
Evelyn's hand brushed the edge of her coat. "You always think you can save everyone. But you can't save her from this. You can't save her from me."
He moved before she could finish.
In one motion, he crossed the room and caught her wrist.
"Where is she?"
Her gaze met his defiant but shaking. "Downstairs. But when she wakes up, Sebastian she'll know everything."
He froze.
"What did you tell her?"
"Enough." Her voice softened into something almost sad. "Enough to make her wonder if she can ever love a man like you."
He released her hand slowly, the silence between them thick with history.
"Why are you doing this?" he asked.
She looked away. "Because the truth has to mean something."
Lightning flashed through the cracked window, illuminating the faint outline of a door on the far wall.
Sebastian turned toward it instinct telling him Isabelle was beyond that threshold, heart telling him he might lose her if he opened it too late.
Behind him, Evelyn whispered, "She's not the only one who deserves to wake up."
He hesitated, then pushed the door open.
The room was dark except for the flicker of a small lamp.
On the cot, Isabelle stirred eyes fluttering beneath her lashes, hand resting on her stomach protectively.
Sebastian's breath caught.
He stepped closer, guilt and relief colliding in his chest.
For a brief moment, he forgot Evelyn was there.
Forgot the storm.
Forgot everything except her.
From the doorway, Evelyn watched him kneel beside Isabelle the ghost and the man who buried her, both frozen in the same breath of time.
Tears filled her eyes, unseen in the shadows.
"Before she wakes," Evelyn whispered to herself, "maybe you'll finally understand what you destroyed."
She turned away, disappearing into the storm once more leaving the truth, and the reckoning, waiting for morning