A week passed, but it didn’t feel like seven days to Irene.
It felt like seven steps toward a cliff she wasn’t ready to fall from.
The sun hung low that morning, soft and gold, when she found herself standing before a towering mansion inside the well-secured gated estate — a place so quiet, so polished, it felt like she had stepped into a world she had no business entering.
Her fingers tightened around Ethan’s hand.
Her other hand clutched Elias’s.
The boys stood on either side of her, their small faces tilted upward, eyes wide as they stared at the massive building before them. Glass windows stretched across the front like a wall of judgment. The gate behind them had closed with a heavy metallic thunk, one that still echoed inside her chest.
Ethan tugged lightly at her fingers.
“Mo
