Sophia’s POV
The silence that followed the call didn’t feel like relief.
It felt like the ground shifting beneath our feet… again.
Colton’s phone was still in his hand, his grip tight enough that his knuckles had gone pale. For a second, no one said anything. Not me. Not Emily. Not Tristian. Not even my parents.
Because what had just happened…
It didn’t settle anything.
It unraveled everything.
“I knew it,” Colton muttered under his breath, pacing once, then twice, like his thoughts were moving faster than his body could keep up. “I knew he was behind it. The silence, the timing, the gala… it all lined up too perfectly.”
His voice carried that sharp edge again. The same one from earlier. Controlled, but barely.
And I wanted to believe him.
God, I wanted to believe that we had fin
