The heavy rain in City A felt like tears from the sky, washing away the traces of the past. Elena stood at the airport exit, clutching her worn-out suitcase. Three years. It had been three years since she was forced to leave this city in shame, framed by her own stepmother and abandoned by those she called family.
"I'm back," she whispered, her voice barely audible over the thunder.
She wasn't the same naive girl who cried for mercy anymore. Living abroad while working three jobs just to survive had forged her into someone stronger. She had a new name, a new life, and a secret that she kept hidden in the locket around her neck—a photo of a young boy with eyes exactly like his.
Suddenly, a fleet of black luxury cars screeched to a halt in front of the terminal. People began to whisper in excitement.
"Is that the Knight family's motorcade?"
"It must be Alexander Knight! The youngest CEO to ever dominate the global market!"
Elena's heart skipped a beat. Alexander. The man she loved, and the man who vowed to destroy her the night she 'betrayed' him.
The door of the lead Rolls-Royce opened, and a pair of polished leather shoes stepped onto the wet pavement. Then came the man. Alexander Knight looked even more lethal than before. His suit was sharp, but his gaze was sharper—colder than the rain itself.
As he walked toward the entrance, his eyes scanned the crowd. Elena instinctively pulled her hood lower, hiding her face. She wasn't ready to face him. Not yet. She could feel the power radiating from him, a stark contrast to the broken man she left behind three years ago. Back then, he was a rising star; now, he was the sun that everyone revolved around.
But as fate would have it, a gust of wind blew her hood back just as Alexander turned his head. For a split second, their eyes met.
Alexander froze. The air around them seemed to drop by ten degrees. The world stopped. The rain continued to pour, but for these two souls, time was a stagnant pool of bitter memories.
"Elena?" he muttered, the name tasting like poison and honey on his tongue.
Elena didn't wait. She turned around and vanished into the crowd, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. The game of cat and mouse had officially begun.
Alexander stood frozen amidst the pouring rain, his long black coat fluttering in the wind. His subordinates immediately surrounded him with umbrellas, but he didn't feel the cold. His focus was entirely on the spot where that woman had just disappeared. Was it a hallucination? A ghost of his tortured imagination? No. That scent—faint jasmine and rain—was unmistakably hers.
"Boss? Is something wrong? The meeting with the board starts in thirty minutes," his assistant, Marcus, asked with concern.
Alexander's jaw tightened, a vein pulsing at his temple. "Find her."
"Sir? Find who?"
"I said, find her! Check every security camera in this terminal! No one leaves this airport until I know where she went! If she's on a flight, ground the plane. If she's in a car, block the exits!" Alexander's voice thundered, vibrating with a mix of fury and something that looked suspiciously like desperation.
Meanwhile, Elena was running. Her lungs burned as she darted through the crowded terminal, weaving past tourists and businessmen. She reached the underground parking lot, her mind a whirlwind of memories. Three years ago, she was the pampered eldest daughter of the White family, engaged to the most powerful man in the city. But her stepmother, Sylvia, had orchestrated a scandal, making it look like Elena had sold company secrets to their rivals and slept with a stranger in a hotel room.
Alexander, blinded by the 'evidence' and his own pride, had looked at her with such hatred that it nearly killed her. "If I ever see you again, Elena, I will make sure you regret even being born," he had hissed before she was kicked out of the city with nothing but the clothes on her back.
Now, she was back, and the first person she saw was the man who had promised to be her executioner.
Elena ducked into a small restroom in a remote corner of the airport, locking herself in a stall. She sat on her suitcase, her body trembling uncontrollably. She reached into her bag and pulled out her phone. She looked at the wallpaper—a picture of a three-year-old boy named Leo, who had a mop of black hair and a defiant little pout that was a carbon copy of Alexander's.
"I have to be strong for Leo," she whispered, wiping away a stray tear. "I'm not here for revenge. I'm just here to get what's mine. I won't let them take your future away, my baby."
Her father had passed away six months ago, and according to a secret letter sent by his loyal lawyer, he had left a significant portion of his hidden assets to her—assets that Sylvia and her stepsister, Clara, were currently trying to steal by forging documents. To claim it, Elena had to be physically present in City A to sign the original documents before the upcoming 30th anniversary of the White Group.
She only had one week.
After thirty minutes of hiding and listening to the heavy footsteps of security guards patrolling the hallways, Elena peeked out. The commotion outside seemed to have settled into a tense quiet. She knew Alexander's tactics. He would have searched the VIP lounges and the main exits first. He wouldn't expect her to be hiding in a commoner's restroom.
She took a deep breath, adjusted her thick-rimmed glasses, and pulled her hair into a messy, unflattering bun. She removed her stylish coat and tucked it into her suitcase, revealing a plain, oversized sweater. She looked like a tired, ordinary traveler now—far from the elegant socialite she once was.
She walked out of the airport through a side exit used by staff and managed to hail a dusty, old taxi.
"Where to, Miss?" the driver asked, glancing at her through the rearview mirror.
"Bluebell Inn," she replied, naming a small, inconspicuous motel on the outskirts of the city. It was a place where no one asked questions and where the carpets smelled of cheap detergent and old cigarette smoke. It was the last place anyone would look for a White or a Knight.
As the taxi drove away, she looked out the window. City A had changed so much. Tall skyscrapers now dominated the skyline, their neon lights piercing through the gray rain. Everywhere she looked, Alexander's face was on digital billboards—promoting his new tech empire, Knight-Core. He was the king of this concrete jungle, a god among men, and she was a ghost returning to haunt his perfect kingdom.
Little did she know, only five minutes after her taxi left, the airport was placed under a total security lockdown. No one went in, and no one came out without their ID being scanned and their face compared to the woman Alexander was hunting.
Back at the Knight Mansion that evening, Alexander sat in his dimly lit study, a glass of expensive, burning scotch in his hand. The room was cold, reflecting the owner's heart. On his mahogany desk lay a blurry photo printed in haste. It was a grainy image from the airport's CCTV. It showed a woman in a brown hoodie for a split second before she disappeared into a crowd.
But those eyes... he could never forget those eyes. They were the same eyes that used to look at him with pure, unwavering love, and the same ones that haunted his dreams every single night for over a thousand days. They were eyes that promised him a home, only to leave him in a desert of his own making.
"Boss, we tracked the taxis that left during that window," Marcus reported, bowing his head in the doorway. He was sweating despite the air conditioning. "One taxi dropped off a woman matching the description at a motel in the suburbs. But when our men got there, the room was empty. She must have jumped out the back window or paid someone to lead us on a chase. She used a fake ID under the name 'Sarah Miller'."
Alexander smirked, a dark, dangerous expression that didn't reach his eyes. "She's learned how to play hide and seek. She's learned how to lie. Good. The Elena I knew was too soft. This version... this version might actually be fun to break."
He tightened his grip on the crystal glass until it shattered in his hand. Red liquid—a mix of scotch and blood—dripped onto the expensive rug. He didn't even flinch. Physical pain was nothing compared to the roaring storm in his chest.
"Elena... you think you can run? In this city, I am the law. I am the air you breathe," he whispered to the empty room. "You think you can just come back after three years of silence and think I've forgotten what you did? You owe me, Elena. You owe me a life."
He looked at the photo one last time before tossing it into the fireplace. He watched as the edges curled and the flames consumed her face.
"Welcome home, my dear runaway bride. This time, there are no exits. This time, I'm never letting you go until I've bled you dry of every secret you're hiding."
Outside, the storm raged on, mirroring the collision of two lives that were never meant to be apart, and the dangerous secrets that were about to be unearthed in the dark heart of City A.