Chloe’s POV
The room still smelled faintly of Gerald’s tobacco when the door closed behind him, a bitter trace that clung to the air as if it wanted to remind me of what he had left behind. I didn’t move at first. I sat rigid in my leather chair, the kind that groaned under weight when leaned back too suddenly, my spine perfectly straight, my hands resting stiff on the arms as though gripping them could steady me.
The photographs lay across the desk like a crime scene, black and white truths frozen on glossy paper. I didn’t want to touch them again, not yet, because I already knew what was in them. Ava’s soft, guilty laugh as she leaned toward Nathaniel in that café.
Nathaniel’s hand brushing too close to hers. Their faces lowered, intimate, as though the world did not exist beyond the
