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Chapter 644
Chapter 644:
“Your wife,” she repeated. “An interesting choice of words, Cole. Given that your actual partner is currently occupying a hospital bed. Or perhaps a parking garage, depending on which lie she’s telling today p>
Cole flinched. Alycia. The fraud, the pregnancy, the endless wreckage he had thought he’d finally escaped.
“That’s not — June, I ended it. I told her to leave. I p>
“Spare me.” June raised her left wrist and tapped her Apple Watch. “I have a meeting at Apex Bio. I don’t have time for your performance p>
She turned to Easton. Her entire demeanor shifted — not dramatically, but enough. Enough that Cole felt it like a blade between his ribs. Enough that he understood, with perfect and devastating clarity, that she would never look at him that way.
A𝘥𝗱і𝗰𝘵і𝘃𝖾 𝘯о𝘃е𝘭𝘴 о𝗇
“Shall we p>
Easton nodded. His hand never left her back as they moved toward the doors, toward the street, toward a life that held no space for Cole Compton.
“June!” The word tore out of him, desperate and broken. “You can’t do this! You promised Caleb — you promised you’d live! You promised p>
She stopped.
Cole’s heart lurched, hope and terror tangled together, as June turned back to face him. But her expression stopped his breath.
She looked at him as if he were already dead. As if he were something rotting, something that had no business speaking that name in her presence.
She walked back toward him slowly, each step deliberate, her heels clicking against the marble in a rhythm that seemed to count down to something final. She stopped six inches away. Close enough that he could smell her perfume — something different today, darker, layered over cedar and coffee and the unmistakable presence of another man.
“You,” she whispered, her voice pitched for his ears alone, “do not get to say his name p>
The words carried more weight than any scream could have.
“You stole his face. You stole his life. You stole three years of my devotion because I thought you were him.” Her eyes — gray and absolute, the color of winter skies — held him pinned. “And now you want to use his memory to manipulate me? To guilt me p>
She leaned closer. Her breath warmed his cheek. Her words froze his blood.
“I will destroy you, Cole Compton. Not because you hurt me. Not because you failed me. But because you dared to wear his face while you did it p>
She straightened and adjusted her watch — a casual gesture that contained infinite dismissal.
“Easton,” she said, without looking back. “I’m hungry. Let’s get breakfast p>
They left.
Cole stood alone in the lobby, surrounded by marble and morning light and the echo of her heels, and understood at last that he had ceased to exist in any way that mattered.
The Beasley family’s rented Upper East Side townhouse had the look of a place on the verge of collapse.
The living room carpet was littered with shattered antique vases and torn eviction notices. The air was thick with cheap whiskey and the particular desperation of people who had run out of exits.