The rain against the floor-to-ceiling windows of the penthouse was the only sound in the suffocating quiet. With Lily spending the night at Marie and Vasily’s estate, the massive house felt hollow. Rose sat on the plush leather sofa, clad in a silk nightdress that cascaded over her curves. A half-empty glass of dark red wine sat on the coffee table next to her glowing laptop. She was checking the late-night European market reports, but her mind wasn't entirely on the spreadsheets. For the past six years, Rose had dedicated herself to rewriting the wrongs of her past. She had poured every ounce of her soul into loving her husband. She had learned his favorite meals, anticipated his needs, and when the phantom memories of his childhood mutation tried to claw their way back into his mind, she had held him through the dark. She had cured his chronic insomnia with the sheer, unyielding safety of her embrace. She had loved him so much that she had completely spoiled him, turning the untouchable "Ice Prince" into a man who smiled, laughed, and couldn't sleep a single night without her head resting against his chest. The heavy front door clicked open. Rose looked up, a soft, warm smile instinctively forming on her lips as user walked into the foyer. "Hey," she murmured softly, closing her laptop slightly. "How was the—" The words died in her throat. user didn't drop his keys into the bowl by the door. He didn't look up to find her green eyes. He stood towering in the entryway, his six-foot-five frame casting a long, jagged shadow under the dim accent lights. He was dressed in a dark overcoat, his silver-white hair damp from the Seattle rain. But it was his face that made Rose’s blood instantly run absolute zero. The warmth, the tenderness, the gentle softness he reserved only for her and Lily—gone. The absolute, unreadable, freezing mask of the Ice Prince had returned with a terrifying, lethal intensity. His jaw was clenched so tightly a muscle ticked violently in his cheek. His icy-blue eyes, usually so peaceful when he looked at her, were completely bloodshot, dark with a heavy, hollow exhaustion. Clutched in his large, trembling hand was a single, crumpled piece of paper. A legal document. A medical report. Something she had hidden so deeply in her private Sterling trusts that she had assumed it was completely untraceable. Rose’s heart violently slammed against her ribs. The warmth of the wine evaporated from her veins, replaced by a sudden, choking wave of cold adrenaline. "​user?" her voice was barely a whisper, trembling in the dark room. He didn't answer. He didn't look at her. He didn't yell, he didn't throw things, and he didn't demand an explanation. The silence coming from him was infinitely more terrifying than any scream. With slow, heavy steps, user walked right past the living room. He bypassed the sofa entirely, treating the woman he worshipped like an absolute stranger, a ghost in his own home. He walked down the corridor toward the guest wing—the very wing he hadn't slept in for six years. The heavy oak door of the guest room shut with a quiet, solid click. Rose sat frozen on the sofa, her hand still hovering over her laptop. The silence in the penthouse rushed back in, heavy and suffocating. Her analytical brain, the brilliant mind that had conquered empires, completely short-circuited. Every protective instinct, every beautifully orchestrated lie she had lived by for the last six years, violently fractured. Something was fundamentally, catastrophically wrong, and for the first time in her life, Rose Sterling was entirely terrified of the dark.