Prologue
“Promise me you’ll never let anything happen to me.”
The words were spoken so casually that Ethan Carter couldn’t help but laugh.
They were sitting on the rooftop of their apartment building, watching New York shimmer beneath the evening sky. The city buzzed with life, but up there, it felt as though the world belonged only to them.
Lily leaned against his shoulder, carefully tying a small handmade bow around his wrist.
“I made it myself,” she said with a proud smile. “It’s not perfect… but now you’ll always have a little piece of me with you.”
Ethan looked at the uneven loops and laughed softly.
“I’ll never take it off.”
She held out her pinky.
“And promise you’ll always protect me.”
Without a second thought, he hooked his pinky around hers.
“I promise.”
Lily grinned, completely certain he would never break it.
Neither of them knew that promises were easy to make…
…but impossible to keep when fate had already written a different ending.
