The wind on the rooftop cut like a knife. Cold. Sharp. Cruel. Tobias Sheldon froze where he stood, his breath torn away by the sight before him. “Elena…” His voice cracked like breaking glass. “Please—step down. Don’t do this. Look at me, Lena… look at me!” She swayed on the ledge, her thin hospital gown whipping violently around her fragile frame. Her hair lashed across her pale face, her eyes blown wide, unfocused—empty. It was like someone had stolen the soul out of her body. “Elena…” Tobias whispered, taking a slow, cautious step forward. “Think of Ethan. He’s downstairs. He couldn’t wait to see you today. You promised him.” Her lips trembled. For a terrifying moment, Tobias thought she was about to collapse forward. “Stay with me,” he breathed. “Remember our garden? Remember how you scolded me for drowning the tomatoes? People said I was hopeless… but you still loved and believed in me.” Her head tilted, confusion flickering through her hollow gaze. Tobias felt hope sti

The light in the interrogation room was a single bulb, flickering, buzzing faintly as if mocking Tobias Sheldon’s exhaustion.The scratched metal table in front of him carried the smell of rust and sweat. His wrists were chained, skin raw where the cuffs bit in.He could still see her. Elena.The way she swayed on that rooftop.The way her body had fallen like a broken bird into the night.The detective leaned forward, eyes cold, voice flat.“Your wife disappears, debts piling higher than your salary as a schoolmaster could ever pay. Now this story about masked men in a van? Convenient. Very convenient.”Tobias’s throat was dry, his lips cracked. He forced his voice through the tightness.“I didn’t stage anything. My wife was sick with cancer. She was weak. And all of is sudden when I come for a visit, I find her on a rooftop, falling to her death. When she fell—someone took her. They carried her away. I didn’t imagine it.”The detective smirked. “And yet, no one else can prove it. Ju

The city of Ciudad de Sanvelis throbbed like a wounded heart in the hours after the bar erupted in blood. Word of the chaos spread fast — a man dead, a van seized, police swarming. Yet beneath the noise, something darker stirred. The phone recovered from the rough-bearded man buzzed with secrets even in death, its cracked screen blinking out coordinates and messages like a confession written in static.The detectives followed the trail with merciless precision. Within hours, a second van was cornered near the East docks, its driver panicking under the glare of rifles. The vehicle was pried open, the was cargo revealed — it was a load of cocaine heavy enough to send ripples through every level of the city’s underworld. Another artery of corruption had been severed.But for Tobias Sheldon, none of it mattered. He was not listening when they spoke of seizures, not watching when officers congratulated themselves. His mind was chained to two names — Elena, who had vanished into shadows

That morning, Tobias gathered his eight staff members in the cramped staffroom. The sunlight slanted weakly through grimy windows, casting pale rectangles across the worn desks. The single ceiling fan clattered above like it too had given up hope.He looked at them — faces he had worked with for years, faces that had once smiled with him through hardship.“My friends,” Tobias began, his voice was low, trembling. “You know me. You know what I’ve given to this place. To you. To our children. I never claimed it was perfect, but we built something here together. I expected sympathy… not this madness. Tell me you still stand with me.”Silence. Then, one by one, voices broke the stillness.“We haven’t been paid in two months.”“The parents don’t trust us anymore.”“The board has already made up their mind.”“If we stand with you, Tobias, we fall with you.”The words landed like stones in his chest.Finally, the senior teacher raised her hand. “We must vote.”Eight hands lifted.Every one ag

The silence after the call lingered like poison in the air.Tobias sat frozen at his desk, his knuckles were white around the phone. His chest rose and fell in shallow bursts, his heartbeat was drumming so loud he thought Ethan might hear it across the room. On the couch, the boy was still slumped, fiddling with the second phone, the plastic tubing of his oxygen trailing like a chain tethering him to fragility.And then Delgado’s voice came again, deep and mocking, seeping through the speaker like venom.“Did you miss me, Tobias?” A chuckle followed, thick with arrogance. “I bet you did, viejo amigo. Everyone misses Aurelio Delgado sooner or later.”The words hit Tobias like a slap. For weeks, this voice had stalked his dreams, twisted his waking hours. Every humiliation, every debt, every shadow of shame—somehow, it all traced back to this man. And now, Delgado dared to taunt him.His instinct was to scream. To roar into the phone, to curse the senator’s name until the walls shook.