Zayne’s POV
The name lands like a blade pressed flat against my throat. Not cutting. Just enough pressure to remind me how easily it could deepen.
Celeste….
I don’t speak. I don’t breathe. I don’t move either.
The line stays open between us, charged and humming, and I know—I know—that Isla feels it. That she hears the pause for what it is. Not confusion or distraction but recognition.
I close my eyes slowly.
Behind my eyelids, memories surface uninvited. Italy at night. Gold-lit rooms. Laughter that always felt like a performance. A woman who found me at my most vulnerable moment. A woman who taught me early that disappearance was a skill.
Celeste.
I let none of it reach my voice.
“Why?” I ask instead, carefully neutral.
The word tastes wrong. Too calm, too measured.
On the oth
