Emma's POV

The silence of the penthouse was a grand, suffocating thing. It swallowed sound, amplified the frantic beat of my own heart, and echoed with the raw sob I'd stifled just moments after Adrian left me in this gilded cage. This wasn't a home; it was a testament to cold, hard power, a sterile monument to a life I didn't recognize. The city lights, once a comforting blanket from my small bedroom’s window, now seemed to mock me, a distant, glittering reminder of the world I had willingly, desperately, abandoned.