Arielle sat at the long dining table, her fork hovering over her untouched plate. The clinking of silverware from the others filled the silence, but her mind was elsewhere. Just hours earlier, she had stood in front of her mother, demanding answers she had feared for years. And now that she had them—raw, ugly, and unapologetic—she could barely breathe in this house.
She forced herself to chew, nod when Kairo glanced her way, and even managed a small smile when one of his associates cracked a dry joke. But behind the mask, her thoughts turned over one truth: she couldn’t survive in this world any longer. Not after knowing how deeply the lies ran.
For the first time, the idea of leaving wasn’t a faint whisper in the back of her mind. It was solid, urgent, almost impossible to ignore.
When
