The weight of Victor's words hung in the air like a storm cloud, thick and heavy, pressing down on my chest. I had been so sure. I had convinced myself that the truth about my mother's inheritance was close—so close I could almost feel the final piece slipping into place. But now, the ground beneath me felt like it was shifting, cracking open, and threatening to swallow me whole.
Victor's taunting smirk had burned into my memory, and the words he'd left me with—"the forged will, it's not worth the paper it's written on"—echoed in my mind, drowning out everything else. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think straight.
Damien had been quiet through all of it, his gaze cold, unreadable. I tried to catch his eye, tried to see some sign that he was with me—that he was still on my side. But all I saw was a storm in his own eyes, a kind of uncertainty that mirrored mine.
