Vera

The safehouse wasn’t really safe.

It was a glass prison built in the hills — modern, sterile, the kind of place that screamed control instead of comfort. Every wall reflected me to myself, fractured into pieces I barely recognized.

Vanessa slept on the couch, curled beneath Nicolas’s leather jacket. Her breathing was steady now, but her fingers twitched in her sleep — like she was still reliving the explosion. I brushed her hair gently, forcing myself not to cry.

We had been ...