ISADORA’S POV


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    Everywhere was white.


    My eyes burned, my ears rang, and for a terrifying moment, I thought I had gone blind. The shbang had swallowed up the entire hall in a blinding inferno of light, followed by the sharp pop that had ruptured through my skull like ss shattering from the inside. All I could see was a blur of glowing haze, my vision coated in milk–white static, like staring into the heart of the sun.


    —


    Shapes flickered in and out of the fog, shadows of movement I couldn’t quite ce, but then faint, piercing, shes of red and blue cut through the whiteness. Sirens wailed in my ringing ears. Handcuffs clicked, voices barked orders, and the heavy boots ofw enforcement thundered against the marble floor.


    The police.


    They were here.


    Panic stabbed through me like an icicle straight to the chest. My throat tightened, my pulse spiked, and for a moment I felt frozen in ce. I couldn’t afford to be frozen. Not now. Not here. Not when everything was crumbling around me.


    I need to leave.


    I forced my body to move, shaky at first, my knees threatening to buckle underneath me. My palms pressed t against the wall, cool marble grounding me as I used it to guide myself toward the exit. My fingertips dragged against its smooth surface, each step a battle between my frayed nerves and the instinct screaming at


    me to run.


    My vision flickered in and out like a faulty bulb – shadows, light, more shadows. When I finally stumbled out into the afternoon air, the scene nearly stole my breath.


    Police cars swarmed the front of the building like an army of mechanical beasts, their shing sirens staining the sky with alternating washes of crimson and cobalt. The storm of voices–officers shoutingmands, yelling protests–blended into a maddening cacophony. The chaos was suffocating, but I couldn’t stand there gawking.


    No sudden movements. Don’t give them a reason to notice you.


    I forced myself to breathe slow and steady, wiped the fear from my face, and adjusted my stride into something calm, casual. Just another shaken bystander, someone slipping away unnoticed while the cops handled their circus inside.


    And, miraculously, it worked. No one stopped me. No one questioned me.


    When I’d finally put enough distance between myself and that hellish swarm of shing lights, I let the mask drop. Myposure cracked in two. Rage bubbled up and erupted in my chest like a volcano finally given permission to explode.


    “Damn it!” I screamed into the air, my voice bouncing off the empty street. I ripped one heel off my foot and


    12:47 Tue, Sep 9 <b>G </b>


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    hurled it at the wall in front of me. The sharp thunk it made on impact was pitifulpared to the scream wing at my insides.


    I pressed my palms to my temples and squeezed my eyes shut. “Who the hell called the police?!”


    It made no sense. It was impossible. Everyone’s phones had been confiscated the moment they entered the building. Every door locked, every camera disabled, the mediapletely in the dark. This was supposed to be airtight. No leaks. No interruptions.


    And


    yet, the police had arrived like hounds on blood.


    “Impossible,” I muttered, pacing in agitation, my hair falling into my face. “Fucking impossible!”


    But that wasn’t the only thing tearing me apart.


    That idiot. That useless fool.


    I could still see him in my mind, standing there like the world’s dumbest excuse for an assassin. He had one job. Just one. End Olivia. End her once and for all. He had failed before, and today he failed again.


    I ground my teeth so hard it felt like they might crack. “You had the chance, you pathetic bastard. You had the chance, and you still couldn’t do it.”


    My nails dug into my palms, crescent moons etching deep into my skin.


    “What kind of assassin can’t even finish the job?!” I shouted. My voice was hoarse with fury, thick with disbelief.


    And because of him, because of his failure my baby boo was the one who got caught in the crossfire.


    The memory of his body copsing, the sound of the gunfire, the sudden chaos, it all reyed behind my eyes until my stomach lurched.


    He was shot. Hurt. Maybe dying. And now, because of the police storming the ce, I had no idea where they were taking him. He’d be rushed to some hospital, treated, guarded, and watched. And me? I was locked out of it all. I couldn’t be there, couldn’t see him, couldn’t even know if he was alive.


    The helplessness burned worse than the fear.


    “God, please let him be okay,” I whispered, my voice cracking as my chest tightened. I pressed my fists to my mouth, swallowing the sob that threatened to w free. “Please…”


    But even in the middle of that raw, aching desperation, my mind circled back to the root of it all. Olivia.


    That woman was like poison. Everywhere she went, everyone she touched, people bled, people suffered. My baby boo was hurt because of her. And what twisted the knife even deeper?


    Adrian.


    Even after everything, even after years of silence and heartbreak, Adrian was still circling back to her now that


    she had resurfaced with a child. His child.


    I hated admitting it. It felt like swallowing ss. But I knew it was true. I could see it in his eyes. he realized she was alive, everything inside him shifted.


    And all of it could have been avoided.


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    If that idiot assassin had just done his job five years ago, if he had taken Olivia and that bastard child out of the equation none of this mess would exist.


    Instead, here we were.


    And if that moron even dared to whisper my name in that police station, if he even hinted that I had anything to do with this, I’d make sure he regretted it. I’d find a way to end him too, no matter what it cost me.


    I let out another strangled yell and dragged my hands down face until my nails scratched


    my


    my


    skin.


    “Fuck!” I roared, my voice echoing off the brick walls of the alley I had stumbled into. My body trembled with fury, my chest rising and falling in harsh, uneven breaths.


    I pressed my fingertips to my temple, grinding them in circles as if I could massage away the storm tearing through my skull.


    “Why…” My voice broke as the words slipped out, unsteady and bitter. “Why can’t you just fucking die?”


    The silence that followed was deafening.


    For a long moment, I stood there in the alley, my breath ragged, my body aching, my mind reying every failure that had led to this point. My heart ached for the man I couldn’t reach, raged at the assassin who had ruined everything, and burned with loathing for Olivia – the center of it all.


    And deep down, beneath the fury and the grief, one promise solidified like steel inside me:


    This wasn’t over.


    AD


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