Elena didn’t move at first. She couldn’t. Her mind was frozen, trapped between disbelief and the overwhelming urge to collapse. Her mother, her dead mother, stood only a few feet away, breathing, blinking, crying. Every memory Elena had spent years burying cracked open at once, spilling grief and hope and fear into her chest all at the same time.
Dante was the only one who reacted. Not with shock, he had the kind of expression that suggested he had always suspected something wasn’t right about the official story. But even he looked shaken. His grip tightened around the gun, his body instinctively shifting in front of Elena, protective without even thinking.
“Explain,” Dante said. Not rude, not warm. Controlled. Cold. Alert.
Her mother took a trembling step forward.
“Elena, sweetheart,
