DAPHNE POV

“Silence after gunfire is the cruelest sound in the world.”

The house felt too big for the three of us, too quiet now that Christian slept and the city hummed somewhere beyond our windows.

I sat at the kitchen table with my hands wrapped around a mug that had long gone cold.

The edges of the world had been paper-cut thin since the call: a shot, a scream, then nothing but distance and noise.

Every small thing made the silence louder: the refrigerator’s hum, the tick of the ...