---- Chapter 19 Chapter 19 Kyle Matthews POV: The black sedan with the tinted windows had been parked across the street for almost an hour. | noticed it when | came out of the office. It had the quiet, expensive hum of a car that didn't belong in a town like this. My heart, which had been calm and steady for five years, gave a sudden, painful lurch. | knew it was her. | tried to act normal. | laughed with my foreman, | drove home, | kissed my wife, Sarah. | hugged my son, Leo. | went through the motions of the simple, happy life | had built for myself. But inside, a storm was raging. After dinner, after Sarah and Leo were asleep, | went out onto the porch and sat in the dark. The scent of freshly cut grass hung in the cool night air. This life... it was a gift. One | knew | didn't deserve. Sarah had found me when | was at my lowest, a broken man working odd jobs, trying to outrun his own ghosts. She was a schoolteacher, a kind, gentle soul who saw not the disgraced CEO, but the man underneath. She had healed me. She had taught me how to be a good man. And now, the past had come back. ---- | saw the headlights before | heard the engine. The black sedan pulled up in front of my house. It sat there for a long time, idling, a silent, predatory thing in the quiet darkness of my street. Then, the back door opened. She stepped out. Aimee. She was just as beautiful as | remembered, but different. Harder. More polished. She looked like what she was: one of the most powerful people on the planet. She walked up the path to my small, humble house, her expensive heels sinking slightly into the soft lawn. She stopped at the bottom of the porch steps, the shadows half- hiding her face. "Hello, Kyle," she said. Her voice was the same, that low, musical timber that had haunted my dreams for five years. "My name is Kyle Matthews now," | said, my own voice rough, unused to this kind of tension. "| know," she said. "I read the report." We stood there in silence for a long moment. The only sound was the chirping of crickets. "Why are you here, Aimee?" | finally asked "| don't know," she said, and for the first time, | heard a crack in her armor of control. | heard the old Aimee, the vulnerable ---- one | had so carelessly broken. "I saw you. At the opening. And I... [had to know." "Know what?" "If you were happy," she whispered. The question hung in the air between us, heavy with the weight of everything we had lost. "Yes," | said, the word catching in my throat. "I am." She nodded slowly, as if the answer was both what she expected and what she feared. "She's a good woman," | said, gesturing toward the house. "And the boy... he's my world." "He looks like you," she said, her voice small. "He has his mother's kind heart," | replied. Another silence. This one was different. It was the silence of a final chapter coming to a close. "I'm sorry, Aimee," | said, and the words, which had been trapped in my chest for five years, finally came out, raw and true. "For everything. For what | did to you. For what | turned you into. | am so, so sorry." A single tear traced a path down her cheek, glittering in the faint moonlight. ---- "| know," she said. She took a deep, shuddering breath. "Goodbye, Kyle." She turned and walked back to the car, a queen leaving a world she did not belong in | watched until the red taillights disappeared into the darkness. | stood on that porch for a long time, feeling the ghost of a life | had thrown away finally, mercifully, let me go.