Chapter 145

*Poppy*

The sterile light of the interrogation room glared down on me, starkly contrasting the chaos twisting in my gut. I sat next to Gemma, my daughter, whose petite frame seemed dwarfed by the harshness of the environment. She nervously chewed on her thumb, her big eyes darting to the door, lingering on the shadows that shifted behind it. I wanted to shield her from the world outside that door—out there lay uncertainty, fear, and a sense of helplessness that hung in the air like a suffocating fog.

"Gemma, sweetheart, you can tell us anything," I whispered, brushing my fingers through her hair to calm her racing heart. But my voice felt like a fragile promise in this formidable space, especially with Easton, the man we had come to both fear and rely on, watching us from across the table like a hawk.

Beside him, Phillip, one of Easton's g