"…and not Seraphina?"
The name landed between them as a stone dropped into still water. Ripples of tension spread outward through the room.
Adrian did not move. His hands remained still on the desk. Only the faint tightening of his jaw betrayed the impact. The air in the study seemed to thin. Outside, a bird called once and fell silent. Inside, the clock kept ticking, indifferent.
Lucas waited. He did not look away. He had asked the question that had been circling the edges of every conversation for months, and now it sat fully in the open.
Adrian's gaze remained fixed on some distant point beyond the window. His mind turned over the image of Raya upstairs, grey eyes still shadowed with exhaustion, bandage around her wrist, the soft way she had smiled when she thought no one was watching too closely. The memory of blood on hospital sheets. The sound of machines. The long hours outside an operating room door.
