Isla’s POV
I left the café with my latte still untouched.
It sat there on the small round table like an accusation—milk already separating at the edges, foam collapsing in on itself, a faint ring forming where my fingers had rested around the cup earlier. I hadn’t taken a single sip. Not because I didn’t want it. Because my body refused to do anything normal after Nero’s voice slid into my throat like a blade.
Celeste’s daughter.
The words kept replaying in my head, looping, echoing, reshaping themselves every time I tried to pin them down. They didn’t make any sense. They weren’t supposed to make sense. I knew my mother. I knew her name. Quinn. Sharp-edged, cold-eyed Quinn who dragged me across states like luggage and never explained why. Quinn who disappeared for years and returned
