Prologue

“You don’t invite ghosts to your engagement party. Unless you want your whole past burning with the candles.”

I wore red.

Because white felt like a lie.

Diamonds sparkled on my wrist.

A man I didn’t love held my hand.

And a thousand eyes watched as I smiled for the camera like I wasn’t suffocating inside my own father’s empire.

Then the lights flickered.

One breath. One blink. One shadow slipping past security like it never existed.

I felt it before I saw him — that silence. That storm.

The kind of stillness that only ever came before something deadly.

And there he was.

Silas Raveen.

Three years gone.

No goodbye. No body.

Now standing ten feet away from me in a black suit, like he hadn’t ruined me before vanishing.

Our eyes met.

My blood went cold.

And somewhere in the crowd, a bullet cracked.

Glass shattered.

People screamed.

Security scrambled.

And Silas moved — not away from the chaos, but toward me.

Fast. Sharp. Automatic.

He grabbed me by the waist, pulled me behind him like I was still his to protect.

I should’ve slapped him.

I should’ve screamed.

I should’ve remembered how much I hated him.

But all I said was—

“You came back.”

And all he said was—

“You’re not safe here.”

Then he pulled out a gun.

And that’s how my engagement party ended:

With a man who once left me bleeding… now bleeding for me again.