Zane's pov:
The rain had changed to its unforgiving form.
It wasn't soft anymore—it pierced. Shredding her thin cardigan, rain soaked through, saturating the sketchpad pressed to her chest. People brushed past her, umbrellas open, drivers separated by the downpour honked in frustration, puddles hoicking up at the wheels, meanwhile to her it felt like the world knocked the breath out of her.
Jean guarded her soaked sketches like a contestant in a grueling competition.
Because tonight?
For the very first time, she felt something.
And tonight?
They mocked her.
The gallery owner gave a cursory look at her portfolio, exchanged it for a shrug and a fake smile which she plastered on her face. "Not bold enough to sell, soft. Doesn't sell."
So in return the left her standing in the rain, mascara leaking down her cheeks, hope dismantled, heart racing in a maladaptive manner.
Until—
She caught his gaze.
From the opposing pavement.
Zane Thorne hadn't intended on pausing. His black car, now stationary, parked in front of a gallery waiting for the driver whilst rain thrashed against the windows. Something caught his eye—
Someone.
A girl.
Soaked to the bone.
Defiant.
No umbrella sheltered her from the rain, and there was no frenzied body language indicating distress. This was a calm type of heartbreak. Though, somewhat paradoxically, it also looked as if she was keeping the entire universe from collapsing using nothing more than a quivering chin and unsteady, delicate fingers.
Not a single blink.
No respiration.
But rather, there was a shift somewhere deep within him.
An odd and quiet tug—almost as if gravity had changed solely for her. Every noise in existence muted just for him to notice the way her breath hitched.
She was oblivious to him.
Yet he was looking at her as if he'd never looked at anything the way he looked at her now.
And for the first time in over two and a half decades… Zane Thorne experienced the feeling of fear.
The fear that if he permits her to fade into the darkness, he may never have the chance to feel this way again.
So he climbed out the vehicle.
And into the downpour.
He doesn't move.
He just stands, rain soaking through his thousand-dollar suit and leaving the figure motionless as a statue. Off in the distance, thunder rolls, but he hears only the soft catch of her breath across the street.
She grips the sketchbook to her chest, trembling in her fingers. Her eyes don't see him. Her eyes are glazed, broken, staring past this freezing world.
And he hates it.
The way in which her sadness has the audacity to reach out and touch her.
He cannot bear the way the people move past her as if she is unseen.
He cannot bear that someone made her feel this little.
And yet...
He s never seen something so big.
His chest hurts in a way he doesn't understand because of something about her—the way she didn't cry, the way she didn't run, the way she just stood there like a broken painting that wouldn't go down.
or something similar.
From next to him, his driver whispers, "Sir?" "We ought to leave. You'll catch cold.
Zane tightens his jaw.
At his side, his hand curls.
Without a moment's hesitation, he takes out his phone.
"Discover who she is."
The man on the other end doesn't inquire as to who. Not required.
Women are not sought after by Zane Thorne.
He doesn't hesitate to look.
He doesn't stop.
So far.
"Sir, do you want a name?" The voice says. "or should I check background?"
Zane speaks in a calm tone.
Too calm.
"Everything."
He keeps his gaze fixed on her.
Ignorant of the man who just made the decision that she would never be forgotten again, she turns slowly and vanishes into the rain-soaked street without blinking.
She would never be forgotten.
Not by him.
Not in this life.
She isn't even familiar with his name.
Zane Thorne, however, is already aware that he will destroy his entire world for her.
Jean's pov:
She no longer felt the rain, even though it was still falling. Not on her skin. Not in her bones. Disappointment usually settled like a second heartbeat in the cracks of her ribs, but not here.
She took a step.
Putting one foot before the other.
Like armor, her sketchpad was pressed tightly against her chest. As though if she held on to it tightly enough, it might be able to keep her together.
A sheen of tears that she would not let go obscured the city lights. Nobody took notice. Nobody ever did. And now she was good at acting, so good that she was afraid.
She rounded the corner, her soaked shoes squelching with every step. They were falling apart—same old pair she'd refused to throw away. The soles were almost gone, but she'd once scribbled a tiny smiley face beneath the tongue, just to pretend her mother was still around somehow. Back then, it gave her a weird kind of comfort.
It didn't anymore.
Because comfort never stuck around for long.
Not after her mom died.
Not after her dad stopped seeing her and started seeing only poker tables and the bottom of liquor bottles.
Not after her uncle started whispering things that made her throat tighten and her eight-year-old self vanish into silence.
She never said a word. Not to anyone.
Who would've believed her, anyway?
She was the quiet one—the weird girl who talked to pencils and poured herself into notebooks because people had never felt safe.
People lied.
Paper never did.
She paused beneath the bus shelter, rain dripping from her lashes as the wind slapped against her cheek. Cold. Sharp. But she didn't flinch. That sting at least was honest. Unlike the memory still echoing in her skull.
Too soft. Not bold. Doesn't sell.
The gallery owner's words came back cruelly.
Her grip on the sketchpad tightened, knuckles paling.
They had no idea what it took for her to draw.
No clue that every stroke was a war with herself. That the page was the only place where her cracks didn't feel like failures where she could finally breathe.
"Too soft," she muttered, voice rough and low. "Guess strength means turning into someone I'm not."
Overhead, a streetlight gave a faint, sick flicker.
She glanced up just in time to see a sleek black car rolling through the intersection. Tinted windows. Engine so quiet it felt like it didn't belong on streets like this.
She didn't notice the man inside.
Didn't see the way his gaze hadn't left her.
But maybe... maybe she felt it. A brief hitch in the air. Something shifting.
Something watching.
Her body tensed, instinct flickering but she brushed it off.
Just another trick of the night.
Another illusion.
Just another thing pretending to mean something.
She'd learned not to believe in moments like that.
Not anymore.
In her apartment :
The door gave a soft creak as she pushed it shut. Rain still clung to her not just clothes. Skin. Hair. Soul maybe. Everything felt heavy.
This place... wasn't much.
One room. Upstairs from a bakery that always smelled burned. Sugar maybe. Or just... old sadness.
Wallpaper peeled at the edges.
The heater? Useless.
Window? Too small to matter.
But... it was hers.
She stood there for a second. No movement. Let the world stay outside. Let silence have its turn.
Fridge hummed. Sketchpad hit the table. Wet. Warped. Edges curling. Ink? Smeared. Like it was crying.
She didn't cry.
Didn't even try to.
Tears were... wasted here. This wasn't a crying place. This was survival.
Clothes off. Hoodie on. That one. Her mom's. Still smelled like vanilla. Faint. Fading. She never washed it. Didn't want to lose it.
Fake comfort is still comfort.
She sat near the mattress. Lit that candle — tiny thing, barely alive. Flame shook a little.
So did she.
Pencil in hand. Just lines. No idea what. Just movement.
Because stillness felt like suffocating.
Some nights… her body remembered too much.
The weight of hands that shouldn't have touched.
Footsteps that shouldn't have paused.
Eyes that should've seen her. But didn't.
She dropped her forehead to the table.
"This world doesn't care," she muttered. Low. Like a secret. "So maybe I should stop asking it to."
Nothing. Just quiet.
Then a flicker.
Tiny. Stubborn.
Like the candle disagreed.
Zane's Penthouse – Midnight:
The city never slept. It just flickered like something glitching in slow motion. Below, the skyline buzzed and blinked, a heart attack of neon and chaos, but up here… stillness.
Zane didn't move.
Didn't blink.
Didn't drink.
The glass in his hand half-filled with bourbon, untouched dripped down his wrist, unnoticed. His fingers were clenched too tightly around it anyway.
"She was in the rain," he said. Quiet. To no one. "Didn't even flinch."
And he hadn't looked away. Couldn't. Not even when he wanted to.
Behind him, the penthouse was dead quiet sleek furniture, sharp corners, lights dimmed to nothing but suggestion. It wasn't a home. It was a fortress. The kind built for strategy, not for softness.
But she had cracked something.
That girl.
The one with eyes full of ghosts.
"Sir."
The voice didn't startle him. Jared never did.
Zane didn't turn around. Just stood there, gaze locked on the window like the city might offer him an answer if he stared long enough.
Footsteps. Measured. Then a folder slid into his waiting hand like it had always belonged there.
No questions.
No gratitude.
Just that cold silence again.
He opened it.
Jean Gray. Twenty-two. A name that shouldn't matter but somehow… did.
No living family.
Art school. Nothing fancy. Just a dusty little community college tucked between a pawn shop and a gas station.
Part-time waitress. Freelance artist.
Apartment smaller than the wine fridge tucked in the corner of this room.
No arrests. No boyfriend. No Instagram thirst traps. No drama. Like she barely existed.
"She's clean," Jared muttered, like it confused him. "Almost too clean. She's almost invisible."
Zane's jaw flexed. His pulse didn't.
"Invisible," he repeated, but it came out different. Like a curse. Like a challenge.
He hated that word.
She shouldn't be.
Not her.
She was fury wrapped in soft paper. A storm dressed in faded hoodies and silence.
He stopped at a photo.
Grainy. Distant.
Jean. Standing at a train station. Hair knotted at the back of her neck. Shoulders drawn up like she was trying to vanish and failing. Her eyes....
God, her eyes.
They weren't looking at anything. Or maybe they were looking at everything.
Zane didn't blink.
He studied her like she was a code to break.
Like she was already his.
"How do I find her?" he asked.
Didn't sound like a question. More like gravity.
"Want me to go through Thorne Holdings?" Jared asked. Hesitant.
"No."
Zane's tone cut glass.
"She's not from our world. Not yet. And if I reach too fast, she'll run."
Jared was quiet.
Then, "So what now?"
Zane closed the folder slowly, deliberately.
"I wait."
A pause.
Then the faintest twitch of a smile—more shadow than shape.
"She'll come to me."