Mariella’s apartment was quiet in the way a battlefield is quiet before someone fires the first shot. Outside, the city buzzed against her window, neon lights reflecting on puddles like spilled secrets. Inside, her living room looked like a crime scene, the pleading still open on the table, Paul Razon’s name staring back at her as if it still had the power to disrupt her pulse.
She tried to breathe normally.Her body refused cooperation.
Ardent Lex Group. Elite. International.The kind of firm that didn’t argue. They devoured.
Four years. Four years of moving on.Of becoming someone newer, steadier, carved out of discipline and purpose.Of leaving the past where it belonged.
Yet the moment she saw his name, everything she buried clawed its way back to the surface like it had been rehearsin
