Two days later, the manor’s courtyard was alive again. Trucks rolled through the main gate at dawn, loaded with raw materials, scaffolding, industrial equipment—and at least eight crew members for the first stage of reconstruction. Lucian Thornewell stood at the top of the stone staircase, a black coffee cup in hand, Tobias at his side, silently watching as the chaos slowly began to form something resembling order.
But it wasn’t the workers who held his attention. It was her.
Andromeda Carter didn’t look like the woman who had been kidnapped just a few days ago—the one who’d retreated behind walls, broken and barely surviving. This morning… she was different.
Her long black hair was pulled back with a new hair tie. She wore fitted black pants and a gray shirt, making her movements appea
