GINA’S POV
I stared at the check like it was poison. Like just touching it would burn through my skin. Honestly, it already had. Not my fingers—my chest, my throat, my heart.
Laila. The same little girl I once held in my arms when she was barely the size of a loaf of bread. The one who used to sneak into my room crying after nightmares. The one who begged me to braid her hair so she could look just like me.
I remembered how tightly her tiny hands used to hold mine. How she called me her big sister, even though her mother always scolded her for it. I was there when her mother yelled, when she felt invisible, when Father was too busy with council meetings to notice her.
And now here she was, standing in front of me like a stranger. No—worse. Like a threat. With pity in her eyes and a che
