Five years had passed, and Sophia had grown much thinner.

When she knelt earlier, her right leg had given out, leaving her weight on her left. Clearly, her right leg was ruined.

I swallowed the sting in my eyes and pulled the coat tighter around me.

“Grant her request.”

I looked at the man beside her.

“And you? Should I call you brother-in-law?”

Hearing that, Sophia’s eyes lit with relief. She bowed her head heavily to me.

“Thank you for letting me go, young master!”

I said no more. I simply turned and left the hall.

Not long after, my father came into my room.

“Ethan, don’t force yourself. The organization has plenty of excellent mercenaries besides Sophia Lane. All I care about is that my son is happy.”

I raised my head and looked at him.

“Dad, go to the Hart family. I’ll marry Emily Hart.”

My father frowned.

“The Harts are a top-tier family. Marrying into them would help us clean our name, but their daughter is… not right in the head. Ethan, I don’t want you marrying out of spite.”

I cut him off.

“This has nothing to do with spite. At least a fool won’t betray me.”

My father sighed deeply but said nothing more.

That night, in the silence of my room, I felt someone enter and stop by my bedside. I didn’t need to open my eyes to know who it was.

After five years, her scent was still the same.

In the darkness, Sophia’s voice whispered.

“Ethan, I’m back. I finally came back to you.”

She placed something on my pillow.

“This is what I got for you five years ago at St. Mary’s Church in Alaska. My greatest wish was for you to be safe. I meant to give it to you back then, but I never imagined our separation would last this long…”

I couldn’t keep up the pretense of sleep. My voice cut through the air.

“Sophia Lane, do you think I’m that easy to fool?”

I flicked on the lamp. In its dim glow, I could barely read her expression. On my pillow lay a small charm of protection.

She didn’t answer me directly. She only followed my gaze to the charm and smiled faintly.

“Whether it was taking on that mission or bringing you this charm, my purpose was the same. Ethan, I want to stand at the top of the underground world. I want to be the woman worthy of you. I want us to live in peace.”

A bitter laugh escaped me.

“You did reach the top. But the one standing beside you now isn’t me.”

Finally, she looked straight at me. There was something in her eyes I couldn’t understand.

“It’s my fault. Ethan, you don’t have to forgive me. But Daniel did nothing wrong. These five years, he’s been with me. Without him, I’d have died in the cold of Alaska long ago. He isn’t like you. You have everything. He only has me. I can’t abandon him.”

I snatched up the charm and hurled it at her face.

“I told you I’d go with you! Sophia Lane, it was you who refused me!”

The words tore out of me in a roar, the ache in my chest so sharp I could hardly breathe.

Five years ago, when she insisted on going to Alaska, I had clutched her hand and told her with all the conviction I had—

If I couldn’t keep her here, then I’d follow her anywhere.

No matter how far, no matter life or death, I wanted to be by her side.

But at the time, Sophia only wrapped her arms gently around my waist.

“Ethan, I want to reach that place on my own. I want to be the one who can stand beside you.”

And now… she had left me—for another man’s companionship.

How laughable.

I had thrown the charm with all my strength, yet it landed silently on the thick carpet. Just as all my strength had never been enough to keep her from running into someone else’s arms.

Sophia picked it up and placed it back on my pillow.

“Ethan, let Daniel go. He’s innocent.”

I gave a bitter laugh, though a tear slipped from the corner of my eye. Before she could notice, I brushed it away.

“Fine. Then get out of the organization. Sophia Lane, without its protection, let’s see how you protect Daniel.”

She stared at me in disbelief.

“I’ve fought and bled for the organization all these years. I have plenty of enemies. You of all people know—without the organization, I’m as good as dead.”

My laugh was cold.

“Sophia, what’s the point of saying all this to me now? You won’t give up anything, yet you think a trinket can buy mercy from me? After knowing me all these years, don’t you realize? I, Ethan Cole, have never been a kind man.”

I walked to the balcony and flung the charm into the night. It arced through the air and vanished.

“Go, Sophia. It’s late. Don’t mistake yourself again.”

I didn’t know when she left, or how long I stood there, until a vulgar sound reached my ears and pulled me back.

It came from the room next door. Sophia’s room—right beside mine, as it had always been since everyone assumed we were meant for each other.

Through the crack of her door, I saw her tangled up with Daniel, the air thick with passion.

The same woman who had just whispered tenderly at my bedside now couldn’t get enough of another man’s embrace.

How laughable.

I turned away, walked downstairs, and sat in the garden in a daze.

As I stared at the endless stars above, my mind drifted back to the night of Sophia’s eighteenth birthday.

That night, the sky was just as full of stars as it was now. But her eyes had shone even brighter.

“Ethan, I love you.”

Back then, I had held her tightly, certain I was holding my entire world.

Lost in memory, I didn’t notice someone sit down across from me until he spoke.

“Mr. Cole, you’re in quite the mood. Still up to admire the moon this late at night?”

“Thank you for earlier. Sophia told me a lot about you. I thought you wouldn’t let us go so easily, but it seems she worried too much. You’re not nearly as ruthless as the rumors say.”

Daniel smiled, but the coldness in his eyes betrayed him.

Without waiting for my response, he continued.

“You must have seen it just now. We live right next door, after all. It’s Sophia’s fault—she couldn’t resist. But you understand, don’t you? When passion takes over, people can’t help themselves. Surely you, of all people, can understand that…”

This time, before Daniel Cross could finish, I pulled the gun from my waist and pressed it against his forehead in an instant.

“The rumors are true. Anyone who crosses me never lives to see the next sunrise. That includes you.”

My voice was so cold it even startled me, and Daniel’s face turned ghostly pale.

As the sole heir of the largest private military organization in the U.S. underworld, the first lesson I ever learned as a boy was never to be without my gun—whether eating or sleeping.

The butler’s cry rang in my ears.

“M–Master Ethan, what’s happening?!”

Olivia, Grace, Hannah, and Sophia Lane all rushed into the garden at the commotion.

Grace stood beside me.

“What is it, Ethan? What did he say to you?”

Daniel waved his hands frantically.

“I only wanted to thank Mr. Cole for allowing Sophia and me to be together today. Perhaps I said it wrong and upset him…”

Before he could finish, Sophia clutched my wrist, her brows furrowed, her expression conflicted.

“Ethan, don’t make it hard for him.”

When I didn’t move and kept the gun trained on Daniel, Sophia swayed, then suddenly released my hand and fell to her knees in front of me.

“Ethan, I beg you—please don’t hurt him.”

It was the second time that day she had dropped to her knees for Daniel. Her face was still flushed with the heat of recent passion.

At that moment, the last string in my heart snapped.

My arm slowly lowered the gun. I closed my eyes tightly until the moisture faded, then turned and walked back into the house.

“Sophia, control your man. If he dares to show off in front of me again, you’ll die with him.”

Two days later, Mr. and Mrs. Hart arrived with Emily Hart.

The butler accepted the long wedding registry from Mr. Hart and handed it carefully to my father. Mr. Cole didn’t even look at it—his eyes only burned on Emily before he sighed.

“The Cole family doesn’t need these things. All I want is for Ethan to be happy.”

From the moment she entered, Emily’s gaze had been fixed on me, and I took the chance to study this so-called simpleton daughter of the Hart family. She was as beautiful as the rumors claimed, but somehow different too. Her eyes, though childlike, seemed to hold an ocean’s depth.

When Emily and I locked eyes, my father waved his hand.

“Ethan, she’s our guest. Show Miss Hart around the estate.”

As we walked toward the garden, a heated quarrel drifted to my ears.

“What exactly did you do to me last night? Why did I lose control like that? Daniel, I’ve already given you everything. What more do you want from me?”

Daniel’s voice was thick with emotion.

“Five years, Sophia. I’ve been by your side for five years. You promised me—just the two of us, a life together. But look at yourself. Do you see how you look at Ethan Cole? After everything we’ve been through, he doesn’t have to do a thing, and you fall apart. In your eyes, what am I worth?”

Sophia lowered her voice.

“I promised you, I’ll be true to you. To me, he’s just the young master of the organization. He and I… we’re no longer possible.”

But this time Daniel cut her off sharply.

“Don’t think I don’t know where you went last night. You went to him, didn’t you? You—”