The front door clicked shut with a finality that seemed to drain the remaining oxygen from the room.
Julian Vance was gone.
But the devastation he left behind remained suspended in the kitchen like smoke after a fire—thick, choking, impossible to ignore.
His expensive cologne lingered in the air, sharp and sterile, carrying the cold scent of glass towers and private boardrooms into a home built from overdue bills and sacrifice. It mixed horribly with the smell of black tea, old wallpaper, and the faint grease soaked into the walls from years of diner takeout.
The refrigerator hummed in the corner.
The old pipes rattled somewhere inside the walls.
And the cheap plastic clock hanging above the stove ticked with merciless precision.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
The sound didn't feel like time anymore.
It felt like a countdown toward something irreversible.
