The dirt path was quiet beneath Ryleigh’s footsteps, the afternoon sun pressing gently against her shoulders as she made her way toward town. The trees whispered overhead, but her mind was too loud to hear them.
She kept her purse close, the weight of it unnatural—not because of what was inside, but what it meant. One check. One number. A hundred thousand dollars to keep her mouth shut.
It was more money than she’d ever seen in her life. Enough to change everything. But as she walked, a bitter question gnawed at the edge of her thoughts: Was her silence really worth that much? Or maybe... was that all her truth was worth to them? A sum to seal her lips, to erase her story. They called it generosity. She knew it for what it was—a bribe cloaked in civility.
She thought about Derek—his kin
