Ella
My patience snapped. “Paige.”
She looked up, eyes sharp now, the mask slipping. “Your mother knew something, Ella. Something she wasn’t supposed to.”
My breath caught. “What did she know?”
The room suddenly felt too small. “That doesn’t make sense. My mother had nothing to do with the Evans family back then.”
Paige smiled thinly. “Not directly. But she overheard something she shouldn’t have. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
I thought of my mother’s part-time job, the events she used to help with. The nights she came home tired, distracted.
“Who?” I whispered. “Who made the deal?”
Paige hesitated. Just for a heartbeat.
And in that hesitation, I saw the c***k.
“You know,” I said softly. “Don’t you?”
Her gaze hardened. “Knowing and proving are two very different
