Lila's P.O.V
The police lights had barely faded before I made the decision. I couldn’t stay in that house another minute—the vineyard that once felt like paradise now pressed in like a cage, every shadow holding Ethan’s anger or Damien’s grin. The kids needed safety, routine, something familiar that wasn’t soaked in lies and shouting. Blackwood was the only place left that still felt like home, the old family estate up in the northern hills where my grandfather had built the main house decades ago. I’d inherited it after my parents passed, kept it maintained through a caretaker, visited once or twice a year. It was quiet, remote, surrounded by pines and open fields. No neighbors close enough to gossip. No vines whispering accusations.
I packed in under an hour—clothes, diapers, favorite
