* Lawrence *She looked familiar. The moment I walked into that conference room, I felt it, a tickle at the back of my mind, like a name just out of reach. Jana Salazar, her file said. But the face? The eyes? They stirred something. Not recognition exactly, but memory... elusive, shadowed, like the echo of a storm.She stood poised in front of the window, back straight, chin high, the city at her back like she was already conquering it. There was a cold elegance to her, polished, professional, and yet... electric. Too composed. As if that stillness had been practiced, sculpted. Forged.I'd seen hundreds, thousands, of applicants walk through these doors. None had that kind of presence.That's why I was here. I never sat in on first-round interviews anymore. Not unless something about the application tugged. Her résumé was strong, sure, but it was more than that. There was a sharpness between the lines of her CV. A burn. Like she'd survived something, and used it.The way she said "pos
* Jana *Present day.....The next day, the rain had lifted, but the clouds still hung low, thick, bruised with gray. I dressed with a deliberateness I hadn't felt in years, slipping into navy slacks, a cream blouse tucked neatly in, and a charcoal trench I kept open for movement. My hair was pulled back, tight and unforgiving. No part of me could afford to look soft. Not today.Because today was the day I would see Lawrence Dankworth again.I had rehearsed it a hundred times, the first meeting, the words I would say, the way I would enter Dankworth & Co. with my head held high and the past tucked neatly behind my shoulders like the silk lining of my coat. I was no longer a girl stumbling through the ruins of what happened in the past scandal. I was a woman now, sharpened by survival. I came here with a plan. With purpose.But no amount of planning could've prepared me for what I felt the moment I stepped into his empire.The Dankworth & Co. headquarters stood tall and glass-streaked
* Jana *Later that week, while we sorted a shipment of donated fabric, Leticia's mood shifted. Softer, almost tender."Tell me about your mother," she said, folding a bolt of silk.I blinked. "You never asked before.""I'm asking now."I brushed my fingers over a roll of pale blue satin. "She had hands like yours. Quick. Sure. She'd sew while singing. Always made up songs. And she used to say... even the ugliest rip could become beautiful if you patched it with the right color."Leticia smiled faintly. "Smart woman.""She is," I said. "Wherever she is."A beat of silence."She left you and your siblings?""No," I said quickly. "No. We were running. She made us get on the boat first. Said she'd follow." My throat tightened. "But she never came."It was a minor lie, I never really knew until now what happened to Mom and where she is. Leticia's hands stilled on the fabric. "Mothers do impossible things when they're scared.""She wasn't scared."Leticia gave me a look. "Then she was lyin
* Jana *The city was louder than the island had ever been. Bigger. Colder. Its streets throbbed with strangers and neon lights, with honking cars and rusted buses and voices speaking languages that some of them I didn't understand. There was no ocean breeze, no rustling palms, no memory of the path that led to Mama's garden or the old hill we used to climb.Here, no one knew our names. And no one cared.We arrived with nothing but a battered suitcase, soaked clothes, and shadows behind our eyes. The rain had finally stopped, but the weight of it clung to us, as if it had seeped into our skin. Geraldine led us through the terminal, head high, acting braver than she felt. Edward was quiet now, burning silently, always watching every face like someone might recognize us, like danger would leap from the next alley.I clung to the edge of them both, the way a broken thread clings to cloth. But things unraveled fast.School was the first to go.We'd tried. Walked into offices with our old
* Jana *The rain hadn't stopped. Not even after we boarded the ship.It still came down in sheets, like the sky was mourning with us, like it wanted to drag the memory of that night across the water, stitch it into the waves so we could never escape it. I stood by the railing, my fingers gripping the cold steel, my dress still damp, my arms wrapped around my chest like I could hold the broken pieces of myself in place.The ferry wasn't salvation. It wasn't peace, or safety, or even hope. It was exile.Behind us, the island grew smaller, swallowed by fog and night and the black stretch of sea that separated us from everything we'd known. Everything we'd lost.Behind me, Edward paced like a lion with its mane on fire. His boots thudded across the soaked deck. He hadn't said a word in over an hour, but I could feel it building in him, the storm. Then, finally, it broke."Damn it!" he snarled, slamming his fist into the side of the ship's wall with a dull metallic thud. "We left without
* Lawrence *The storm made everything louder. Every word. Every scream. Every tear. It beat against the world like it wanted in, into the walls, into our bones, into the twisted spaces between what we said and what we meant. And it echoed inside my skull like a war drum, a rhythm of rage that had gone too long unheard. Unchecked. Unanswered.Now, it was loose.And so was I.I watched the house unravel in front of me, like it was made of paper and old lies. Fragile things pretending to be sturdy. My men were the wind, flipping cushions, slamming open cabinets, dragging drawers out like intestines."Keep going," I barked. "Tear it apart."And they did.Because I wasn't here for sympathy. I wasn't here for apologies or explanations. I was here for retribution.The pink diamond ring. My mother's ring.The one jewelry she considered significant, the symbol of my father's love to her on third engagement day. And now it was gone. Vanished. Stolen.And every damn instinct in my bones, the sa