Lucian's POV ....
The convoy moved.
Smooth. Silent. A coffin on wheels.
I stared out the tinted window. Trees blurred past—green smears against grey sky. Houses. Small lives. People who didn't know my name, didn't fear my power, didn't wait twenty-one years for a woman who might never love them back.
Lives I'd never live.
My reflection stared back at me in the glass. Pale. Tired. The face of a man who had everything and nothing.
Who is that?
It was me. My dying self.
I pressed my fingers to my chest. Felt the rhythm there—wrong, always wrong. Skipping. Stumbling. A drummer who forgot the beat.
How much longer?
The question had no answer.
My phone suddenly buzzed against my thigh.
I pulled it out.
Patricia.
"Lucian, you left. We have to talk."
I stared at the screen. Her name. Her words. Her desperate need to pull me back into a world I was trying to escape.
