The door clicked shut behind her,
sealing her into silence.
The penthouse loomed large and empty,
every surface gleaming coldly back at her.
Too clean.
Too hollow.
Too loud in its quiet.
Serena set her bag down carefully on the entry table,
like it might shatter if she let go too quickly.
She slipped off her coat, draping it over a chair.
Everything slow.
Measured.
Careful.
As if pretending she was fine could make it true.
No sign of Landon.
No note.
No missed call.
No apology waiting on the marble countertop.
Just silence.
She wandered into the kitchen.
Opened a bottle of wine with trembling fingers.
Poured herself a glass so full it nearly overflowed.
She drank half of it in a single breath.
Her phone buzzed on the counter.
A lifeline.
A hope.
She grabbed it—
but it wasn't Landon.
It wasn't anyone she cared about.
Just an auto-notification:
New Article: Graves Holdings Celebrates Record-Breaking Quarter.
Malik's face again —
sharp suit, effortless smile,
standing with the city's elite like he had never fallen at all.
Serena set the glass down too hard.
Red wine sloshed over the rim, pooling across the counter like spilled blood.
She didn't wipe it up.
She didn't move.
She just stared at it.
For a moment, she imagined herself stepping into the mess.
Letting it stain her dress.
Her skin.
Her bones.
Letting it drag her under.
Maybe it would be easier.
Maybe it would be quieter.
But she didn't.
Not yet.
Not tonight.
She stumbled toward the living room,
collapsing onto the cold leather sectional.
Her head tilted back against the cushion.
She stared up at the ceiling,
watching the shadows bleed across the plaster.
The tears didn't come all at once.
They leaked out slowly,
silently,
until she wasn't sure when crying had started or if it had ever stopped.
She cried for the gallery.
For the marriage.
For the dreams she built and buried.
For Malik —
not for leaving,
but for leaving her so completely that she didn't even have a name worth remembering anymore.
For Landon —
for the lie he had been,
and the worse lie she had told herself.
For herself —
because there was nothing else left to grieve.
Her phone buzzed again.
She didn't look this time.
She curled into herself,
a woman folding smaller and smaller,
until she was nothing but a hollow echo in an empty room.
The city kept living without her.
The world spun without her.
And Serena Calvert —
once Graves, once queen, once everything —
lay broken among the ruins she had made with her own hands.