Zane watched the sunset from the balcony of his new city apartment. The sky was tinged with shades of orange and gold, as if even the firmament was tired of pretending everything was fine. In his hands, the letter he never delivered. The letter he wrote for Ana the night he discovered she was still alive... but also, the night he understood she was no longer his.
She had changed. So had he.
He had fought for her. He had defied the Vasiliev family, had wandered into the dark paths Viktoria offered him, believing that his intelligence and determination were enough to manipulate the enemy. But Viktoria was not just any enemy...and he, a man with a broken heart, was easy prey for promises of power and justice.
He thought he could use her. And in the end, it was she who showed him another truth: that revenge and obsession do not heal, they only transform love into a bitter echo.
But something changed between them. In the clandestine meetings, in the shared plans, in the early mornings where they argued to exhaustion, there were moments... small, almost imperceptible, where Zane saw another part of Viktoria. Not the corrupt politician. Not the ruthless woman. But the wounded girl who had hardened herself so as not to break.
One night, after one of those tense encounters, Viktoria had stood looking at him silently. Without makeup, without the weight of her last name, without defenses.
-You're broken too, aren't you? -she asked.
Zane didn't answer. He just looked at her. And for the first time, he didn't see Ana in another woman's eyes.
Now, sitting in his solitude, he thought about that question. On her unspoken answer. On the fact that maybe...maybe two broken people could learn to hold each other without hurting each other.
The phone vibrated. It was a message from Viktoria.
"The hearing is in three days, will you come?"
Zane took a deep breath. He didn't know yet if he believed in redemption for her. He didn't even know if he wanted her in his life. But he knew he needed to close one chapter, and maybe...open another.
He responded with a single word:
"Yes."
Then he got up, left the letter for Anne on the table-no return address, no delivery intended-and prepared to leave. He would no longer run after a past that did not belong to him. Ana had chosen her path.
And now, for the first time, he would also choose hers.
Even if he didn't quite know it... he had already begun to walk alongside Viktoria.