---- Chapter 17 Chapter 17 Aimee Ramirez POV: Five years. Five years had passed since the night Kyle had vanished from my life. Ramirez Industries was a titan, and | was one of the most powerful women in the world. | had everything | had ever fought for. My life was a fortress of success, secure and unbreachable. And it was a prison. | was in Chicago for the opening of our new Midwest headquarters. It was a glittering affair, a testament to my reign. As | was giving a speech, my eyes scanned the crowd of reporters and dignitaries. And then | saw him. He was in the back of the room, dressed not in a janitor's uniform or a bespoke suit, but in the simple, rugged clothes of a working man. He was older, his face weathered by sun and time, his hair shorter. But it was him. The way he stood, the intensity in his eyes. It was unmistakably Kyle. My voice faltered. | lost my place in the speech. A hundred faces were staring at me, but | could only see one. He didn't approach me. He just watched, a quiet, unreadable ---- expression on his face. When the event was over, he was gone. A frantic, desperate need to know seized me. | called my head of security. "Find him," | ordered. "The man in the back of the room. | want to know everything." The report came back the next morning. Kyle Lopez now went by his mother's maiden name, Kyle Matthews. He lived in a small town a hundred miles outside of Chicago. He owned a small construction company, one he had built himself, from the ground up. He specialized in building affordable, sustainable housing for low-income families. He had two employees. He lived in a small, rented house. He was, by all accounts, a quiet, respected member of his community. He was... happy. The thought was a shock to my system. He had rebuilt his life. He had found a new purpose, a quiet, meaningful existence far from the world of power and greed that had destroyed us. He had moved on. And | hadn't. | was still the queen in my cold, lonely castle, haunted by the ghost of a man who wasn't even dead.