Novels by Risa Mint

Chapter 69Mia didn’t know how long she cried, didn’t remember when she collapsed, cheek pressed to the smooth wood above the keys. The next time she opened her eyes, it was morning once more. Birds chirped outside the window like a cruel joke, and her whole body throbbed with ache.Morning spilled into the room like a silent witness, the golden light brushing over her wilted shape hunched beside the grand piano. Mia hadn’t realized when night gave way to day, only that her eyes ached from crying and her body felt like it no longer belonged to her.She sat up slowly, blinking against the light, memory roaring back like a cruel tide.Andreas.His absence was a hole nothing could fill. Every corner of the house echoed his voice, his laughter. Even the air felt haunted.Her breath came out in shallow pulls as she lifted her head from the cold ivory keys. The silence in the studio felt like it could crush her. It smelled of pain and old memories of laughter, of song, of Andreas’s voice ec

Chapter 68 Andreas had never known silence to roar so loud. He stood at the center of his living room, shoulders hunched, fists clenched at his sides, breath uneven as the reality of Mia's words thundered in his chest. "I can't do this anymore." It echoed, cruel and final, like the snapping of a thread pulled too tight for too long. His luggage lay forgotten by the door. He hadn’t even made it past the foyer of his house before the agony hit. With a guttural growl, he threw his car keys onto the table. They slid off and clattered to the floor. He began pacing, dragging a hand through his hair, hard and fast, like he could rip the torment from his scalp. "Why?" he barked at the empty room, voice cracking. "Why the hell did I let myself fall so hard?" He rushed to his mini bar, reached for the whiskey bottle on the kitchen counter and yanked it open, downing a heavy gulp straight from the neck. The burn did nothing to numb the ache. He stumbled back, slumped into the couch, bottl

Chapter 67 Mia's point of view. The days passed like ghostly shadows crawling across the walls, slow, heavy, and heart-wrenching. I watched my daughter shrink more and more every day as she returned from school. And I couldn’t breathe under the weight of it. The guilt, the shame, the ache, it all folded itself around my lungs like vines, choking every bit of air from me. I’d brought Sofia back home from my mother's house. Tried to pretend like we were okay, like we could move past this. But that illusion shattered the moment she came to me that morning, fully dressed in her school uniform. Slowly, she walked to me, her tiny hands clutching my shirt, her tear-stained eyes pleading. “Please, Mommy,” she whispered. “I don’t want to go back to school. Don’t make me go back there. Please.” I froze, scared that I might know what her answer “Why, baby? What happened?” Her lip quivered. “They make fun of me at school. They said... they said you and I stole Brian's daddy. That I’m the r

Chapter 66Mia’s hands wouldn’t stop shaking.She paced the length of Susan’s living room which had become her final place of comfort over the years. Mia felt like a storm trapped in a teacup, each breath sharp and tight in her chest. Her voice came out in tremors, barely containing the panic clawing at her throat. “He’s back, Susan. And he’s going to take her away from me.”Susan, calm as always, lifted her head from where she sat curled on the couch, her face lined with concern. “Mia… we don’t know that it’s Lucas. What if someone else was behind those messages? You said it was anonymous.”But Mia’s senses had already recognized the handwriting in the venom of those words. “It’s him,” she said firmly, her eyes gleaming with equal parts fear and rage. “I know it in my gut.”No amount of calm reasoning could reach her now. After receiving the message, Mia grabbed Sofia and drove her straight to her mother’s house without a second thought. She needed her safe. Out of reach. Far from t

Chapter 65The weight of Sofia's words hung in the air, suffocating Mia as if the walls themselves had shifted closer."What do you mean, baby..." Mia asked in shock as if she didn't already know what the child meant."I want to see my real daddy, Not Andreas" Sofia had said, her voice sharp and foreign to Mia's ears."But baby, you know Andreas loves you right? He..." Mia paused, and for a moment, she forgot how to breathe. Her hand hovered awkwardly mid-air, the fingers that had been poised to smooth Sofia's hair now stiff and useless. She blinked rapidly, trying to anchor herself to the moment, trying to steady the eruption she felt boiling just beneath her skin. She couldn't lash out. She wouldn't.Drawing in a slow breath, Mia crouched down, lowering herself to Sofia's eye level again, masking her spiraling emotions behind a soft, placating smile. "Sofia, baby..." she said carefully, feeling her heart pound against her ribs, "I understand you miss your daddy. But baby, the thing

Chapter 64 Mia arrived at Sofia's school just five minutes behind schedule. And the first thing Mia noticed was the absence of a smile. Sofia didn’t come running toward her as she usually did, arms outstretched, curls bouncing with every hurried step, face split into the bright grin that had always been Mia’s anchor after long, hard days. Today, her daughter only walked toward her, shoulders slumped, backpack hanging awkwardly off one arm. She climbed into the backseat of the car without a word, buckled herself in, and muttered a flat, "Hi, Mom," staring out the window. Mia blinked, momentarily immobilized behind the wheel. Something twisted sharply inside her chest, but she quickly smoothed her expression before turning in her seat to face her daughter. "Hey, my love," she said in a bright, coaxing voice. "How was school?" A sharp, dismissive tut was Sofia’s only answer. She didn’t even look at Mia, she just sank deeper into the seat, arms crossed tight across her chest like a