Chapter 156

Adrian's POV Monday morning arrived with the weight of decisions that had been postponing themselves for weeks. I stood outside VM Group's research department, my hands trembling slightly as I tried to summon the courage for a conversation that felt simultaneously essential and terrifying. The hallway buzzed with the usual morning activity—researchers arriving with coffee and optimism, lab assistants preparing for another day of breakthrough science, the familiar rhythm of intellectual pursuit that had once been my world too. But today, all of that felt secondary to the one task I could no longer avoid. I needed to face Claire. Not as the bitter ex-boyfriend who had enabled her persecution, not as the manipulated fool, but as someone finally ready to take responsibility for the pain I'd caused and the choices I'd made. Since Nicole's arrest, it’s been a journey through shame so profound it had changed fundamental aspects of how I understood myself. Every detail revealed during the tria