Chapter 97: Broken Trust

Ella’s

I walked back and forth across the living room floor for what felt like the hundredth time that evening. The deep, muffled ache in my wrists was nothing compared to the sharp, twisting anxiety in my gut. Every thirty seconds, my eyes snapped to the clock, hoping—praying with a raw desperation—that Noah would walk calmly through the door and end this terrifying wait. He had been gone for hours now. His official “meeting,” if it had even existed, should ...