"Ewan, Athena is here."
For a moment, Ewan thought he'd imagined it.
Sandro's voice came from the doorway, but his mind barely registered the words. He sat on the edge of the bed, a book half-open in his hand, eyes fixed on a line he'd read a dozen times without absorbing a single word. The letters swam before him, a blur that refused to arrange themselves into meaning.
Athena's face—her expression when he last saw her—kept flashing before his eyes. The accusation in her voice, the exhaustion in her eyes. The pain. It haunted him every time he blinked.
It was strange, he thought. He'd been through worse—had seen blood, betrayal, loss. Yet somehow, that woman's broken look had done what bullets and knives could not: it had gutted him clean.
He exhaled sharply and shut the book, trying to push away the memory, but Sandro's words echoed again. "Athena is here."
