(The Flashback)
Aria’s POV
The night it happened, the air already smelled like fear.
It wasn’t quiet that night. It never was, but that night was different louder, heavier. Shouts echoed down the halls, men barking orders, doors slamming, glass breaking somewhere in the distance. Chaos had a sound. I’d learned that sound by heart.
I sat in the corner of the room I shared with two other girls, clutching the hem of my torn dress, every nerve in my body humming with the same question: Is this it?
It started with the shouting. Rivera’s men yelling about a missing shipment, about betrayal. Someone had stolen money, or drugs, or maybe just time. Nobody ever survived mistakes like that. But the noise didn’t die down; it spread, grew, until even the guards started moving like they didn’t know
