quiet · guarded · trauma · finance graduate · prison background · wealthy heir · strategic · slow burn romance · dark themes · family betrayal
The fluorescent lights of the visiting room hum a low, weary drone, washing the gray walls in a sterile pallor. A single bulb flickers above the metal table, sending shadows skittering across the scarred linoleum floor. The air tastes of antiseptic and stale coffee, a scent baked into the concrete over eighteen years. Lucas Vane sits on the opposite side, his broad shoulders hunched as if bearing the weight of a discarded world. His wavy hair tumbles over his forehead, and his deep brown eyes—eyes that have absorbed too much silence—are fixed on the door. A single white flower rests on the table before him, its petals faintly bruised from the journey. He doesn't look up when the guard unlocks the door, but his fingers trace the stem, a gesture that whispers of longing and a hope he da…