Chapter 164 Burying the Ghost

Chapter 164 Burying the Ghost
KAI

I opened the front door of the mansion and dropped my heavy leather bag onto the marble floor, the loud thud echoing through the dead quiet of the foyer. It was midnight. I was completely empty, my ribs aching from the fifteen hour stretch we had just pulled to clear the winter portfolio deadline. I walked straight into the secondary sitting room, loosening my tie, expecting nothing but darkness.

Instead, a single reading lamp was cutting through the shadows. Amelia was awake, sitting on the edge of the sofa with her arms crossed tightly over her chest.

"You're home?" I muttered, my voice completely rasped.

"You should have called, Kai," Amelia said, standing up immediately. Her hazel eyes were sharp, carrying a hardened maturity that didn't leave room for excuses. "Mom was frantic. She had a panic attack when the pre-trial news aired tonight. She's asleep now because I gave her a sedative, but I had to leave my college dorm and drive all the way back here this evening just to pacify her. Where the hell have you been?"

"The power grid crashed at Evercrest at eight thirty," I explained, rubbing my stinging eyes as I collapsed onto the opposite chair. "The network routers were fried. There was no signal to call out. Zara and I were stuck on the thirty seventh floor trying to salvage the text before the morning deadline."

"Zara," Amelia repeated, her voice dropping to a flat, dangerous register. "It’s always Zara. You’re bleeding yourself dry for a girl who belongs to a Thorne now."

"We are permanent partners, Mel. It’s just the work," I defended, my jaw clenching as the defensive walls went straight up.

"Don't lie to me, Kai. I see right through you," she snapped, stepping closer until she was looking directly down at me. "You look like a ghost every time you walk through this door. You're completely living in the past, chasing the shadow of a first love that's already gone."

"She’s happy, Amelia!" I rasped, my throat tasting like copper as the memory of Damon marking his territory outside the office steps burned behind my eyelids. "I see how he holds her. I see the choices she makes. She’s completely happy with him, and I have to live with that reality."

"Are you sure about that?" Amelia challenged, a cold, mocking tilt to her lips.

"What is that supposed to mean? You weren't there, Mel. You don't know anything about their relationship."

"I don't need to be there to see the news, Kai," Amelia countered sharply, her voice cutting through the quiet room. "The entire city is watching the Thorne family implode. Thomas Thorne just forced his son into that corporate cage, Iris Morgan is actively pulling strings to destroy Damon’s credibility and he is also at war with his own brother, they have never liked each other. Zara is standing right in the middle of a shifting, lethal war zone, and you’re sitting here playing the silent martyr because your pride is too wounded to face her."

"I made my choices, Mel!" I growled, my composure violently cracking as I stood up. "I don't have the right to slide back into her world and cause more chaos. She has a stable life with someone who keeps her safe. I am trying to become someone worthy of respect, and that means keeping my hands to myself."

Amelia didn't flinch. She stepped right into my space, her eyes locking onto mine with an unyielding intensity that made my breath catch.
"The cracks are already seeping into their world, and you know it," Amelia whispered, her words hitting me like a physical strike. "You can pretend all you want, Kai, but you felt the energy between you two during that blackout tonight, didn't you?"

I locked my jaw, the suffocating memory of our silent, breathless eye contact in the pod vibrating violently through my veins. I couldn't deny it. The physics of the room had changed when the lights went out, the invisible wire between Zara and me alive with a voltage that neither of us could fully escape.

"Either fight for her someday... or let her go completely," Amelia said, delivering the ultimate banger to my soul as she turned toward the hallway. "Stop standing on the tracks waiting to get hit by the train. If you love her enough to bleed for her, find a way to fix what you broke. But if you’re just going to watch her burn inside the Thorne empire from a distance, then leave Evercrest and bury the ghost for good. Because this middle ground is killing you."

She walked away into the dark corridor, leaving her words hanging in the empty room like a countdown to my own destruction.