Chapter 72: The New Chapter
The months after Cole's defeat were quiet in a way Maya had never experienced before.
Not the heavy quiet of fear or the tense quiet of waiting. This was different. This was the quiet of peace. The quiet of a life that was finally, fully, her own. She woke each morning without the weight of the past pressing down on her. She walked through her days without looking over her shoulder. She fell asleep each night in the arms of a man who loved her, surrounded by a family that had become her home. It was a quiet she'd never dared to hope for. It was a quiet that felt like a gift. She'd spent so many years running, so many years fighting, so many years surviving. And now, finally, she was living. She was thriving. She was exactly where she was supposed to be. The mo
