The doors to the hall swung open, and Riana stepped back inside.
The atmosphere had shifted completely.
Where there had been tension, judgment, and whispered accusations only moments earlier, there was now relief being raw, overwhelming relief. Conversations overlapped chaotically. Some laughed in disbelief. Others wiped tears openly. The air buzzed with one undeniable truth:
Wesley Winters was alive.
Riana’s gaze found him instantly.
He stood near the center of the hall, taller than she remembered somehow, shoulders squared as if he had finally decided to stop bending to the weight of everyone else’s expectations. His clothes were rumpled, faint traces of dried blood still visible near his collar and knuckles, yet none of that seemed to matter to the crowd surrounding him
