Where Petals of Vengeance Bloom

Chapter 409

With a dull, heavy clang, the prison gates slowly creaked open.

Ethan stepped out, his hair cropped short, his movements sluggish and uncertain.

Harsh sunlight slashed across his eyes, forcing him to squint. After ten years behind bars, the world outside felt at once familiar and foreign—as if he'd been hurled through time, only to land in a reality that no longer fit. Everything seemed insubstantial, dreamlike, as if he were caught between two lifetimes.

His thoughts drifted, unbidden, back to a decade earlier.

Back then, he'd been full of swagger, standing at these very gates to meet Claire as she was released. He'd eyed her with suspicion, convinced her limp was just an act, and spared her nothing but ridicule. Her five years in prison? He'd brushed them off as no big deal.

Now, after tasting the suffocating agony of lost freedom himself, he finally understood just how excruciating it all had been.

He raised his gaze. The street before him, the trees lining the sidewalk, the blue sky overhead-all looked exactly as he remembered. But in his eyes, everything was painted in shades of desolation.

Once, he had come here with anticipation to welcome Claire home. Now, as he stood outside those same gates, there was nothing-no one waiting, no warm embrace. Just emptiness and the biting chill of loneliness, seeping into his bones like a wintry wind.

Ethan wandered on, stumbling through the haze, his feet automatically carrying him in the direction of home.

He barely noticed the passage of time, until he found himself at an intersection. The light turned red. He stopped, staring ahead in a daze.

A sleek black Rolls-Royce glided past. Through the lowered window, Ethan caught

girl in a Cresthaven Academy

soft roundness of youth still on her cheeks. Her

what made Ethan's heart lurch. It was

shrank. Before he knew it, he was shouting

sped away, leaving him behind. He didn't stand a chance of

wry smile

had been twenty-three when he'd gone to prison. Now, ten years later, she'd be thirty-three. There

have been twelve or thirteen

Inside the Rolls-Royce, Amara

the rearview mirror

that

think he

eyes, a dangerous glint flickering in their

mistook us for someone else," he replied

Ten years.

much so that

...

more than three hours before finally reaching

arrived at the iron gates of Linwood Manor, he stopped dead in