Chapter 1416:

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Blaine’s fingers faltered almost invisibly in their careful arrangement of the papers.

His eyes found hers, and he summoned a smile that cut deeper than any tears could.

“What woman would want someone like me?”

Self-mockery wrapped around his words, concealing the weight of exhaustion and sorrow beneath.

What woman could love a man whose heart held only obligation, with no space left for romance?

Blaine knew he couldn’t offer that. Didn’t believe he deserved to try.

Documents clutched against his chest, he moved toward the door.

Several steps later, he froze as if struck by sudden memory, then slowly turned back.

Uncertainty flickered across his features before he voiced the question that had haunted him for a long time. “Has he… still not come back?”

The words emerged carefully, as though he feared disturbing something precious and fragile.

That simple pronoun struck Sadie like a blade sliding between her ribs.

Agony bloomed outward from the wound, spreading through every nerve.

Her gaze dropped, dark lashes creating delicate shadows across her cheeks.

Three years had stretched behind them.

Three endless, aching years.

Noah’s surgery had failed three years ago.

Hurst had taken him back to Zupren clinging to one final thread of hope, and silence had swallowed them whole ever since.

Through more than a thousand dawns and midnights, Sadie had existed in perpetual torment, suspended between desperate hope and crushing despair, awakening each day from dreams that felt like both prayers and nightmares.

She dreaded the call that would shatter her world, yet feared even more that no call would ever come.

Relentless anguish had battered her heart into fragments, yet it persisted in its stubborn rhythm, clinging to the thinnest thread of hope.

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A bitter smile ghosted across her lips while words failed her completely.

Certain sorrows, when given voice, don’t diminish but only spread their poison to those who love us.

Rising from her chair, Sadie smoothed her clothing and moved past Blaine with firm resolve.

Her retreating silhouette stood proud as a solitary evergreen weathering winter’s fury, yet radiating profound isolation.

Blaine’s eyes followed her departure, understanding settling heavy in his chest.

Both of them carried the burden of being left behind.

He knew exactly how that felt.

Sadie climbed to the chairwoman’s office on the building’s highest floor.

Beyond the sweeping wall of glass, Jazmah’s vibrant arteries pulsed with endless life, crowded streets weaving between gleaming towers.

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