Irina’s POV
I was done hearing their conversation.
Aiden let me go as I stepped forward, no longer bothering to mask the sound of my approach. The crunch of rubble beneath my bare feet was deliberate. I was letting my presence known.
They both turned.
Julie—no, Arlette—froze the moment her eyes met mine. The flickering torchlight cast her face in fractured shadows, but I saw it clearly—the tremor in her lips, the widening of her pupils. She knew. She knew I’d heard everything.
I’m sure she was using my parents to keep me under her thumb, but she couldn’t use that anymore.
Harden, on the other hand, smiled. That cruel, knowing kind of smile that made my stomach twist. “Ah,” he said, his voice almost reverent. “The lost daughter returns.”
“Don’t,” I growled. The sound that left me was
