CHAPTER SIXTY SEVEN -- STRANGE REQUEST
It wasn’t the bruises or the blood drying on my lip. It wasn’t even the pain lancing through my shoulder where she’d scratched me. It was the dismissal. The way he didn’t even look back.
I had defended myself. I had asked about Maya.
And he had chosen her.
That night, I didn’t cry. I couldn’t. The fury wouldn’t let me.
But the fear? That stayed. It scratched at the back of my throat with every hour that passed and no sign of Maya. No answers. No whispers. No proof she even existed anymore.
By morning, I couldn’t stand it.
I slipped out of my room, dressing quietly, ignoring the dull ache in my ribs and the stinging cuts on my arms. The mansion was already humming with movement—servants, guards, gardeners. All of them moving like they didn’t see
