Amara didn’t sleep.
She sat on the edge of her bed long after midnight, the room dark except for the glow of her phone screen.
Her jaw was tight, thoughts spiraling in sharp, vicious loops she couldn’t quiet.
Every image replayed itself relentlessly.
Aisha crying in the snow.
Her father standing too close to her.
The way his attention curved around Aisha like instinct instead of choice.
She hated it.
Not just the jealousy—but the loss of control.
Aisha had always been easy to guide. Easy to guilt. Easy to bend with the right words.
But now something had shifted. Something had slipped out of Amara’s grasp, and it terrified her far more than she wanted to admit.
So she did the one thing she had avoided until now.
She reached out to Daniel.
They met the next afternoon in a quie
