Chapter 26: What Comes Undone
The rain came without warning. Cold. Unforgiving. Like the sky itself had been holding its breath for too long—and finally exhaled everything it had. Maxine didn't care. She walked anyway. The Guerrero's estate was behind her, distant and dissolving into gray mist. Her shoes were soaked, her clothes clung to her skin, and her hair was plastered to her face—but none of it registered. All she could feel was the tremor in her bones. The hollow ache in her chest. The numbness that came not from the rain, but from grief. From truth. Her mother had died... not because fate was cruel, not because time ran out—but because someone chose to let her die. They stole her. And her father let them. He confessed it with tears in his eyes, a brittle whisper between gasping breaths. "I was desperat
- Writer
