---- Chapter 24 24 Liam felt the air leave his lungs. Her voice. After all this time. "Maya, please," he choked out, tears welling in his eyes. "Just let me talk to you. Let me explain. | know | don't deserve it, but..." He launched into a desperate, rambling plea. He told her about Ava, about the forced abortion, about ruining her career. He thought, in his twisted, grief-stricken mind, that these extreme actions would prove the depths of his remorse, his devotion to Maya. He was confessing his monstrous acts as if they were sacrifices made in her name. "| did it for you, Maya," he whispered. "To show you... to show you that you're the only one." There was a long silence on the other end of the line. When Maya finally spoke, her voice was devoid of any emotion. "| forgive you, Liam." A tiny, fragile seed of hope sprouted in Liam's desolate heart. "You... you do?" "Yes," she said, her voice still flat, distant. "That's what you want to hear, isn't it? That | forgive you? So you can absolve yourself, feel better about what you've done." The hope withered, died. ---- "But my forgiveness, Liam, it doesn't mean reconciliation. It doesn't mean a second chance. It means I'm letting go of the anger, the pain. For myself. Not for you." "Now, please," Maya continued, her voice hardening slightly, "leave me in peace. I've built a new life here. A life that doesn't include you. A life | deserve." She hung up. The click of the disconnected line was like a gunshot in the silent room. Liam stared at his phone, her words echoing in his ears. "| forgive you." A dismissal, not an absolution. He remembered her wedding vow, the warning he had ignored. He remembered the cronuts, his last pathetic attempt at an apology, a gesture she had accepted with chilling calmness before vanishing. Her final rejection. The full weight of his loss, the absolute finality of it, crashed down on him. She was truly, irrevocably, gone from his life. He had not only lost her love, he had lost her. The despair was a black hole, consuming him. Maya, meanwhile, was already making arrangements. Another new identity. Another new location. This time, even more remote, even more untraceable. ---- Liam's persistence was a threat to her hard-won peace. She would not allow him to shatter it again. She was tired of running, but she would do whatever it took to remain free. Back in New York, Liam was about to spiral further when an urgent call came. A massive crisis at Goldstein Global. Ava Sinclair, it turned out, was not as broken as he'd thought. She had resurfaced, allied herself with some of Liam's recently fired, disgruntled former friends, and was launching a fullscale media and legal assault against him and his company. Public accusations of coercion, abuse, financial misconduct. Revenge. Served cold and public. Liam was forced to return to New York, to fight for his empire, the only thing he had left besides his all-consuming regret.