The mansion was unusually quiet, the kind of silence that seemed alive, pressing against the walls, thick and suffocating. I found myself walking through the corridors aimlessly, my thoughts tangled in a web of doubt. After the visit from my stepmother and half-sister, my mind refused to rest. Their words, so deliberately sharp, kept echoing: "Damien isn't the man you think he is."
I tried to shake it off, telling myself it was just another attempt to unsettle me. Yet, their insinuations had cracked something inside me. I hated it—hated that they had managed to plant seeds of doubt in a heart that was already fragile.
