Chapter 17
Spring finally broke over New York City, washing away the winter snow with warm April rains and blooming cherry blossoms. Julian walked out of the New Jersey warehouse after finishing a grueling double shift, breathing in the fresh spring air.
He had been promoted to shift supervisor, earning a modest raise that allowed him to move out of the roach-infested studio apartment. It wasn't luxury, and it certainly wasn't the billionaire lifestyle he had squandered, but it was earned honestly through his own labor.
He pulled out his phone, scrolling past old contacts of people who had blocked his number the moment his family's empire collapsed. He stopped on a blank contact screen, wondering for a brief second what life would have been like if he had chosen courage over submission.
Shaking his head to clear away the useless regret, he slipped his phone back into his pocket and walked toward the subway station. He was learning how to be a real man, stripped of the toxic entitlement and fragile ego that his mother had nurtured in him.
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It was a painful, humiliating education, but it was the only path forward toward genuine redemption and self-respect. He knew he would never cross paths with Elena again, and that realization brought him a strange, comforting sense of closure.
She was soaring high above the clouds in a world he no longer had any right to inhabit or disturb. He swiped his metro card at the turnstile, descending into the underground subway station to catch the late train home.
