The door clicked shut behind her, the echo of Lucifer's departure still ringing in the heavy air. Valerie stood there for a long moment, her mind a storm of contradictions—rage, loss, fear, defiance—all coiled into a tight ball of suffocating emotion.
Then, the weight of it all began to bear down on her chest. Her breath hitched, and for the briefest moment, she felt herself wobble, like she might collapse from the sheer force of the darkness that had filled the room. But she didn’t. She wouldn’t. Not now.
She took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to steady herself. That was when she felt the familiar presence of Laura behind her, the soft scuff of boots on the floor, the steady rhythm of a heartbeat that somehow anchored Valerie to the world she’d known. The bodyguard, the woman who ha
