(Emery’s POV)
The hospital lights still hummed overhead, even after they discharged her.
Luca didn’t let go of her hand the whole ride home, and Emery didn’t tell him that something in her chest still felt tight — like the storm wasn’t over yet.
Because it wasn’t.
James was alive.
Wyatt was cornered.
But something was still missing.
And she knew exactly where to find it.
⸻
Back in the apartment, Emery pulled the worn leather journal from the back of her mother’s old trunk. The one she’d buried deep after the first time she read it. But now, she needed answers. The kind only Anna Carter could give.
She flipped past the pages about small-town routines and Luca’s name scratched in the margins like a secret her mother never admitted.
And then she found it.
May 19
I lied to protect
