The old document trembled in Bella’s hands. Time had not been kind to it, the paper was yellowing, edges burnt from some long-ago attempt to destroy it, and faint smudges of water damage blurred some of the ink. But the words… the words were still legible enough. Enough to ruin everything.She leaned over the lamp on her desk, the dim glow casting long shadows across her apartment. The silence was thick, interrupted only by the rhythmic ticking of the antique wall clock and the hum of her own breath.Angela White’s elegant signature, right next to Tom Gordonis’s bold scrawl, was scrawled at the bottom of the memo, like matching daggers thrust through Andre Gordonis’s back.“He’s too strong,” Angela had written. “If we don’t act now, he’ll dismantle everything we’ve built.”“Use the girl,” Tom had scribbled in reply. “Hermosa’s loyalty is weak. She’ll break under pressure. Frame him. Make it stick.”Bella swallowed the sour taste rising in her throat. For years, she had suspected the G

The silence between them was thick, charged with history, betrayal, and pain that neither woman knew how to unravel without it hurting. Bella sat at the edge of the motel bed, eyes pinned to Hermosa like a surgeon preparing for the first cut. Hermosa, for her part, looked like she’d been hollowed out and stitched back together too many times.Bella’s voice was steady but sharp. “Why?”Hermosa blinked. “Why what?”“Don’t play dumb with me,” Bella snapped. “Why did you betray Andre?”Hermosa flinched as if struck. “Bella, I….”“I want the truth,” Bella interrupted, her voice tightening. “Not the PR version. Not the Gordonis story. The truth. Because I saw the files, Hermosa, I know what Tom and Angela did. I know they framed him. But what I don’t understand is you. You loved him. I know you did. So why the hell did you stand in court and bury him with your testimony?”Hermosa looked down, lips trembling. Her fingers twisted in her lap, and when she finally spoke, her voice was barely au

The restaurant was elegant, wrapped in soft golden light and the low hum of classical music. Hermosa sat in a private booth tucked into a corner, her posture tense and unreadable, her fingers tightening around the wine glass she hadn’t touched.Across from her sat Don Alaric, composed, charming, and unreadable beneath that damned mask. His presence made her stomach flutter, not in romance, but in the kind of unsettling way a puzzle made you uneasy when you knew you were missing a vital piece.He leaned forward, resting his arms casually on the table, and his voice came gently. “You’re quiet tonight, Hermosa,” he said, his lips curling into an easy smile. “But I understand. You have questions… don’t you?”Hermosa didn’t answer at first. Her eyes were fixed on his hands, strong, graceful, as they tapped lightly on the mahogany table. But it wasn’t the gesture that caught her attention.It was the tattoo.There, stretching over his right hand, was a raven.She knew that tattoo. She knew

Bella stepped out of her car, her eyes scanning the quiet estate. The early morning sun cast long shadows across the driveway, and the air was still, almost too still. She clutched her handbag tightly as she made her way to the front door, her heels clicking softly against the stones.Hermosa opened the door before Bella could even knock. Her face was pale, her eyes guarded, and there was a tension in her shoulders that immediately set Bella on edge.“You look like hell,” Bella said gently, stepping inside.“I feel worse,” Hermosa replied. “Come in.”They moved into the sitting room. Hermosa offered tea, but Bella declined, settling on the velvet couch instead.“I came early because I couldn’t sleep,” Bella admitted. “Too much racing through my mind. I haven’t stopped thinking about our last conversation... about Andre. About the evidence. Everything is finally beginning to make sense. I feel like we’re this close.” She pinched two fingers together.Hermosa didn’t respond immediately.

The soft glow from Bella’s laptop cast shifting shadows across the walls of the control room. Hermosa leaned in toward the CCTV monitors, her heart racing as the grainy images flickered. “There,” she whispered, pointing at a dark silhouette just beyond the iron gate.On screen, a figure stood still, head tilted as if listening. Then the person started gliding sideways, pacing slowly back and forth. Rain earlier that evening had dampened the driveway, puddles glistened in the low lamplight.Hermosa’s chest tightened. “Who is that?” she murmured.Bella closed the laptop but kept her eyes fixed on the screen. “Calm down. It’s a guard shift, someone checking the perimeter. Probably late.”Hermosa shook her head, frowning. “It’s too one-pointed. Someone staying in one spot, watching the gate.”Bella's phone buzzed. She checked the time. “Okay. I’ll go check the back. You go upstairs. Stay with your father.”Hermosa reached for her phone on the table. Heat tingled through her fingers. She h