Chapter 20 - The Half-Open Door

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Two days later, the news broke across the criminal underworld. The Thorne syndicate had undergone a violent, bloody purge. Simone Vey was dead. Victor Hale had disappeared entirely. Dozens of corrupt lieutenants had been quietly erased.

Adrien had burned his own empire to the ground to rid it of the rot.

I stood on the porch of the heavily fortified safe house, watching the black convoy roll up the long, winding driveway.

Adrien stepped out of the lead car. He was wearing a fresh suit, but his eyes looked a thousand years old. He walked up the wooden steps, stopping a few feet from me.

"It's done," he said quietly. "The threats are gone. The syndicate is stabilized under loyal men. You and Leo will never have to look over your shoulders again."

He pulled a set of heavy keys from his pocket and held them out to me.

"The keys to the new estate," he said softly. "It's entirely under your name. The security forces answer only to you. I'm giving you the crown, Mara."

I looked at the keys glittering in his palm, then up into the desperate, pleading eyes of the man I had once promised to love forever. He had brought me the heads of my enemies. He had laid his empire at my feet.

But I thought of the empty chair at the ultrasound. I thought of the dark, freezing tunnel.

I didn't take the keys.

"I don't want a crown, Adrien," I whispered, tears blurring my vision. "I just wanted a husband."

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I turned around and walked back inside, leaving the door half-open in the wind. A bridge had been burned, but a new path had been laid. The choice of whether to cross it now belonged entirely to him.

(Open Ending)