Liora’s POV
The walk back to my seat felt longer than it should have.
Every step echoed with the same image burned into my mind. Alice’s manicured fingers closing around my wrist. The cool, unforgiving press of the hotel key forced into my palm. The certainty in her eyes as she walked away, already convinced the world would bend the way it always had for her.
I replayed the moment over and over, trying to figure out where I should have spoken louder. Where I should have pushed back harder. Where I should have dropped the key onto the marble floor and followed her out just to prove I was not someone to be used.
But I had not done any of that.
Instead, the card sat heavy inside my clutch, like a secret I had never agreed to carry.
Ezra rose when he saw me return, his hand briefly touch
