Lucien Blackthorn died on a rainy Tuesday.
They said it was an accident. A brake failure. A twist of fate on a lonely highway.
Aria Monroe never believed that. Not for a second.
She remembered the way his hands had gripped the wheel—calm, steady. The way he kissed her forehead that morning and told her, "I'll be back before sunset."
He never came back.
They found the wreckage near Devil's Hollow. No sign of skid marks. No calls. No witnesses.
Just flames. Just silence.
She screamed until her voice cracked. Cried until the tears ran dry. And when the casket lowered into the dirt, something inside her was buried too.
Lucien was gone. Her first love, her chaos, her devil in disguise.
But life moved on, cruel as ever. Years passed. The world forgot.
Aria didn't.
She rebuilt herself from the ashes—stronger, smarter, untouchable. And then came Damien.
Sweet, successful Damien. The kind of man she should've loved. The kind who whispered promises and made her believe in second chances.
Until the night he tried to kill her.
As her blood stained the floor, and her heartbeat slowed to a crawl, she saw it—
a crack in the air. A flicker of flame. A figure cloaked in smoke and sin.
Lucien stepped through, eyes burning like embers.
"Miss me, baby?"