#Chapter 27: The Heavy Weight of Secrets

DEREK Elena had denied cheating on me with Logan. But she hadn’t denied that Aiden was his. The realization had settled into my ribs like a slow, festering wound, burning through every rational thought I had left. She could have corrected me. Could have told me I was wrong. But she hadn’t. That was all the confirmation I needed. I had spent years believing she was gone forever. That she had died in some nameless rogue ambush, her body never found. I had grieved. I had broken myself apart trying to understand how the world could have been so cruel—how fate could have given me something so precious only to rip it away before I could even mark her. And then she had come back. But not to me. To him. I stood in my office, staring at the map spread across my desk, barely seeing the lines that marked the territories. My hands curled into fists at my sides, tension coiling tight in my chest. I wasn’t a fool. If Logan had been in her life before she regained her memories