Chapter 79

Addison’s POV

My heart didn’t just skip a beat; it felt as if it had stopped entirely, then restarted with a violent. My mind, usually so sharp and calculating, became a void of white noise. All I could do was stare, he was standing there.

Derek, the same Derek, I confirmed dead the previous day. He was standing on the other side of the chamber, looking at me with an expression I couldn’t quite read, and every carefully laid plan I had began to crumble at the edges.

For a full five seconds, I wasn’t Addison, the strategist. I was just a woman seeing a ghost. My body...