CHAPTER 25 — WHEN ALLIES BREAK
Trust didn’t collapse all at once.
It eroded.
It thinned quietly, like stone worn down by water, until one day the ground beneath you was hollow — and you were already falling.
Amara felt it before anyone named it.
THE HOUSE THAT NO LONGER FELT SAFE
The Moretti estate still looked the same from the outside.
Iron gates. Silent cameras. Guards stationed at their posts like statues carved from discipline.
But inside, something had shifted.
The air was tighter. Conversations ended too quickly. People watched each other when they thought no one noticed.
Amara caught it in the smallest details — a guard hesitating before answering her question, a servant avoiding eye contact, a pause that lasted half a second too long.
Fear had turned inward.
Clara wal
