Chapter 224:


    Isolde walked through the wreckage, her gaze passing over the disorder without a flicker of emotion. A year ago she would have been on her knees scrubbing, desperate to maintain the illusion of a perfect home. Today, she simply stepped over a stic truck and headed for the balcony.


    Her phone buzzed in her pocket. Professor Eldridge Nelson.


    She slid the door open, stepped out into the cool morning air, and answered. “Professor?”


    “Sophia,” Nelson’s voice came through warm and energetic, using the name she hadn’t heard in years — her middle name, the one she used on her academic papers. “I heard a rumor that you secured the Orbital project?”


    Isolde leaned against the railing, looking out at the city skyline. “Yes, Professor. Though I’m currently trapped in some domestic trivialities.”


    “Trivialities?” Nelson scoffed gently. “Don’t let trivialities bury your talent. The Institute isunching a new initiative — a deep-space habitat project. We need a lead architect. Someone who understands that a structure is a vessel for life, not just a metal box. I want you, Sophia.”


    Isolde’s heart skipped a beat. The wind lifted the hair from her face, and for a moment she felt lighter. “Professor, I’m ttered. But my current situation — my life is a bit of a mess.”


    “Status is what you define it to be,” Nelson interrupted firmly. “You are Isolde Carson. You are Sophia. Don’t let a man — or his family — define your trajectory. You are a star, my dear. Burn bright.”


    Isolde gripped the phone tighter. The words struck something deep within her, resonating in the hollow spaces where her patience used to be.


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    “I’ll think about it. Thank you, Professor.”


    She hung up and stood staring at the horizon. The smog had cleared, leaving the sky a piercing, limitless blue. A spark of hope, long dormant, began to kindle in her chest. She wasn’t just a discarded wife or a failing stepmother. She was an architect of the future.


    She turned back to the living room, her resolve hardening — and noticed the silence. It was sudden and suspicious. Kaiden was gone.


    Isolde frowned. She didn’t want to care, but her agreement with Grayson required her to keep the boy alive. She walked down the hallway, checking the rooms, until she reached the study.


    The door was ajar. Inside, Kaiden sat cross-legged on the floor, a pair of sharp scissors in his hand, furiously hacking away at a bundle of soft blue fabric.


    Isolde froze.


    It was a sweater. Not just any sweater — the one she had knitted three years ago, back when she was pregnant with Effie. She remembered the long nights, her back aching, her fingers swollen, knitting every loop like a quiet prayer for the daughter she would eventually lose. She had kept it in a cedar chest, a memory of love and grief.


    Now ity in tatters on the floor. Blue yarn covered the carpet like severed veins.


    “None of it stays!” Kaiden muttered, snipping a sleeve into ribbons. “Mommy Belle said these are all trash! Trash!”


    Isolde watched him, her face unreadable. A strange calm washed over her — no anger, no impulse to scream, only a quiet, icy rity.


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