POV: Isabella
The safe house’s silence had become a canvas for obsession. The beige walls closed in, the hum of the air conditioning a monotonous soundtrack to her spiraling thoughts. She was a prisoner of potential, armed with a burner phone and a mind screaming to do something. Xavier was fighting the legal and corporate war. Her battlefield was the past. Her weapon was the ghost.
She had memorized every syllable of Eleanor Shaw’s letter. The music is gone from me now. All that remains is the weight of this bargain. The words spoke of an ending, a surrender. But bargains had terms. Trusts had administrators. A woman who vanished didn’t evaporate; she left a vacuum, and vacuums were often filled by systems—legal, medical, and financial.
The clues were in the grief. Security for the chi
