Chapter 21

The cold rain soaked Alexander to the bone, yet it couldn't wash away the fire of regret and resentment burning inside him. He stumbled home, hollow-eyed and silent. For days, he locked himself in his room, seeing no one and handling no business. He sat under the gray, empty sky, chain-smoking until the air turned thick and sour, ashes piling on the expensive rug under his feet. Eleanor's words, "It means nothing to me," kept echoing in his mind like a curse. The way she had looked at him, detached and indifferent, as if he were a stranger, cut into his chest again and again. He couldn't accept it. He couldn't accept that she had erased him from her life, that another man now stood by her side. The failure to win her back didn't wake him up. It only deepened the obsession growing in his bones. His need for control, his desire to possess her, grew stronger. He had never been denied anything he wanted. He had been blind before, deceived and foolish. But now, he saw clearly. Now, h