Rafael stood alone in the underground parking garage long after the engine of his car had gone cold.

The concrete walls amplified the sound of his breathing, slow and controlled, as if restraint were something he could practice like a muscle. His phone rested in his palm, screen dark now, but the last message he had read still burned behind his eyes.

Alyssa will be at the east wing tonight. Alone.

He hadn’t replied.

He shouldn’t have even opened it.

Rafael closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the steering wheel. Loving Alyssa had never been simple. It had always been a quiet kind of destruction—slow, dignified, and inevitable....