Layla POV
It didn't matter how much I threw myself into work, nothing really changed. My mind was still full of the prospect of my fate being entirely inescapable.
Hadn't I been through enough already to deserve a bit of peace?
Hadn't I worked hard enough to deserve a shot at my own fate without having to rely on anyone else?
That choking net that wouldn't leave me be continued to get tighter and tighter whether I wanted it to or not.
Gabriel kept rearranging security without telling me as if the villa was under siege, and Kian kept sending messages that hovered between apology and desperation. Meanwhile, Chelsea's friends filed complaints with every authority that they could think of for imagined and embellished incidents, and as much as the elders whispered and the city
