Rain kept pounding the private cemetery in Fairfield County, relentless and cold, dragging leaves and broken petals down the slope as if the sky itself wanted to rip something loose from the earth.
Ethan Hayes remained kneeling before his wife’s grave, his trousers soaked with mud, his coat clinging heavily to his frame.
For two years, every Thursday, at the exact same hour, he had come here with a bouquet of white roses.
It didn’t matter if investors were waiting in Manhattan, if reporters crowded outside a gala, or if the board of Hayes Capital demanded his presence.
He always came.
He never missed Olivia’s grave.
When the girl appeared, Ethan thought, for a moment, that grief was playing tricks on him again.
She looked too young to be alone in a cemetery during a storm like this.
Too out of place for a world where graves were carved from imported marble and visitors arrived in luxury cars.
Her bare feet were muddy, her clothes worn but clean, her dark hair plastered to her face by rain.
And yet, she didn’t look like someone begging for help.
She stood upright. She met his gaze.
In her eyes was something Ethan recognized too well: fear held together by sheer will.