Elena Moretti had fought wars before.

Courtrooms, scandals, enemies dressed like friends, men who didn’t deserve the power they held.

But nothing tested her composure quite like the elevator doors sliding open to reveal Luca Volkov.

Five years hadn’t softened him.

If anything, time had sharpened him into something lethal — colder, steadier, impossibly controlled.

Black suit. Silver tie clip. Jaw set like granite. And those gray eyes…

They swept over her once, slowly, like he was remembering every inch.

She didn’t flinch.

“Elena,” he said.

Her name in his voice was a sin — low, restrained, too familiar.

Once upon a time she would’ve melted. Now she kept her chin high.

“Mr. Volkov,” she answered, deliberately formal.

Something sparked in his eyes — irritation, maybe hurt. She didn’t care.

They walked into the boardroom with cameras flashing and executives pretending not to gossip. Every step echoed with unspoken history. Every glance felt like contact.

Matteo wasn’t here — thanks to God.

Her brother would have thrown a chair at Luca.

She took her seat across from him, unfolded her files, and reminded herself she was not the girl who once confessed love to this man under a storm-lit sky.

She was a professional.

She was rebuilt.

She was unbreakable.

The meeting began, but it didn’t matter. Every person in the room felt the unspoken electricity, the “do not mention their past or we will die” tension.

Luca didn’t take his eyes off her — not once.

When the last executive finally cleared out, Elena gathered her documents with shaking hands she refused to show. She could leave now, walk away untouched, undefeated—

“Elena.”

Not a command. Not a plea. Just her name again — and somehow, that was worse.

She didn’t look up. “We’re done here.”

“No,” Luca murmured, “we’re not.”

She froze.

His chair scraped back and he walked toward her — slow, measured, like approaching a wild animal that might bolt.

He stopped just close enough to cage her without touching her.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said.

She laughed softly — broken, sharp. “You hired Moretti Law Group. You knew exactly who would walk through that door.”

His jaw clenched. “I didn’t approve the assignment.”

She finally met his eyes.

“Then you should fire whoever did. Because I’m not leaving.”

It wasn’t bravado. It was truth — she needed this job, needed to prove she wasn’t ruined by him, needed to stand in the same room and not fall apart.

He stared at her — searching for weakness, or maybe hoping to find it.

“You don’t understand,” he said quietly. “This is not safe for you.”

“Is that a threat?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “That’s the problem.”

Her breath caught — for one humiliating second — because she knew what he meant.

Loving her had always terrified him more than hating her.

He exhaled, voice low enough to barely count as speech.

“Someone is targeting Volkov Holdings. Anyone close to me is at risk.”

“I’m not close to you,” Elena replied.

For the first time, he looked genuinely hurt — a flash, but real.

“No,” Luca whispered. “You’re pretending you’re not.”

Silence swallowed the room.

Her pulse pounded. His breathing thickened. Their ruined history hung heavy between them.

She could leave.

She should leave.

Instead she said, “You don’t get to talk to me like you still have that right.”

Something cracked — in him, not her.

“Elena,” he said, voice raw enough to betray him, “I never stopped—”

She stepped back like he’d swung at her.

“Don’t,” she whispered. “Whatever you’re about to say — don’t say it. Not five years too late.”

Pain flickered in his eyes, but she didn’t look long enough to comfort it.

She brushed past him — chin lifted, heart shattering silently.

He didn’t reach for her.

But he turned toward her as if pulled by instinct, and when she reached the door, he said the words that would haunt her long after the lights of Volkov Tower disappeared behind her:

“You were never gone from me.”

Elena didn’t stop walking — because if she did, she would break.

But once the door closed, she leaned against the hallway wall, eyes burning, breath shaking.

Five years, and still…

He could destroy her with a sentence.

She wiped her tears before they could fall.

This time she wasn’t the girl he walked away from.

This time she was going to make sure she never loved him more than he loved her.

This time they would break equally.