It had been a month since Roman disappeared.

At first, the police had come every other day, asking the same questions, retracing the same steps, promising progress. Then the visits slowed. Calls stopped coming. Hope thinned until it felt like an unspoken agreement that Roman Blackwood was no longer a priority.

Aside from his abandoned car, found with its door left open, and the engagement ring recovered from the ground that night, there was nothing. Just one grainy CCTV footage of Roman driving out of the city at midnight, his face unreadable through the windshield.

Serena kept the ring locked away, wrapped carefully in silk, like something fragile and sacred....