Lucas’s POV
I couldn’t focus.
I was sitting behind the wide glass desk in LukeTech’s executive office, dressed down in a plain black hoodie and jeans so no one would recognize me, I felt like a stranger in my own skin.
The city sparkled thirty floors below, all sharp edges and bright lights, but inside me everything was dull and heavy. My eyes kept drifting to my phone. Screen dark. No messages. No missed calls. Nothing from Avela since I’d left her standing in that parking garage yesterday morning.
I’d told her everything—about my mother’s murder, about the danger, about why I’d hidden who I really was. I’d laid my heart open and watched her freeze. She hadn’t yelled. Just stared at me with those beautiful eyes full of hurt and confusion, then let me walk away.
I didn’t know if she
