Modric’s POV
The first apology took me three hours to write.
Not because I did not know what I had done.
Because every sentence I wrote tried to become an excuse.
I was young.
Velvera encouraged me.
Cassius arranged the circumstances.
My father taught me that weakness must be punished before anyone could see it in me.
All of those things were true.
None of them changed the fact that I had looked at Mary Ann Sterling and chosen cruelty.
I sat at the small desk inside the recovery room with my injured side tightly bandaged beneath a loose shirt. Elara had forbidden me from working, walking without support, attending council meetings, or doing anything she considered likely to reopen the wound.
Writing had not appeared on her list.
Kylian stood near the window with a stack of repo
