All Chapters of The Full Moon Verdict: Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

The room was dark except for the thin wash of lamplight across a table strewn with folders, ashtrays, and a single half-smoked cigarette cooling in a metal tray. The woman sat straight-backed in the chair, hands folded on the wood as though she were about to recite a ritual. Her coat hung on the back of the chair like a shadow that had been draped with intent. Beside it, a small kettle hissed on a hot plate, filling the room with a faint, domestic steam that clashed with the sterile business of what they did there.Her subordinate stood opposite, shifting under her gaze. He was broad-shouldered, scarred where the world had taught him lessons with blunt instruments. Up close his jaw worked; he rubbed the back of one hand as if trying to erase the tremor he felt. Danger had the look of habit on him, but tonight the habit had been interrupted. He was dry-mouthed and small in the lamplight.“They were difficult to track,” he began, words chewing at the edges of restraint. “Burners, cash h

The days blurred.The room’s curtains hadn’t been pulled open once since they’d checked in. The air conditioner droned like a tired sentinel, masking the rhythm of two people trying not to be seen by the world outside.Anna paced sometimes, restless, though she tried to hide it. Ethan noticed. He noticed everything. The way her fingers would skim along the edge of the dresser, tracing wood that wasn’t hers. The way her eyes lingered too long on the muted television screen, not watching, but using its flicker as a stand-in for the world beyond their door.He kept her inside. Always inside.Housekeeping had knocked three mornings in a row. Each time, Ethan answered the door before Anna could move, his voice even but sharp: “Just towels.” Nothing more. He would slide a tip through the crack, trade words for linen, then close the door with the quiet precision of a man who knew the cost of visibility.No one entered. No vacuum hum, no clatter of glass bottles on carts. Only the towels, sta

The gun had become part of the room. Its weight pressed on the wallpaper, on the scuffed dresser, on the threadbare carpet beneath Anna’s bare feet.The woman sat in the chair as though it were a throne, legs crossed, pistol balanced with casual grace. Her eyes—pale, clear, merciless—moved between Ethan and Anna like a pendulum.“You burned your boats,” she said at last. Her voice was unhurried, as if time itself bent to her patience. “That’s what they whisper. Men like you don’t sever ties; you choke them. Yet you…” Her lips curled faintly. “You lit matches. You left bridges in ash. Why?”Ethan sat forward on the bed, elbows on his knees, gaze steady. His breathing was measured, shoulders still. He didn’t speak.The silence stretched long enough for Anna’s skin to prickle.The woman tilted her head, almost indulgent. “Was it strategy? Or desperation? Or maybe…” Her eyes slid briefly to Anna. “…a weakness.”Anna felt heat crawl up her throat. Weakness. She wanted to snap back, to tell

The safehouse was nothing more than a crooked cabin buried in trees. Paint flaked from the siding like old scabs, shutters hung at odd angles, and the porch groaned under their steps. It smelled of mildew and dust inside, a place no one had cared for in years. Perfect.Ethan closed the door with a quiet click, sliding the bolt home. He stood for a long moment, back pressed to the wood, shoulders tight with a weariness he refused to show.Anna dumped the duffel on the warped table. “Sit,” she ordered.He gave her a look, faintly amused despite the pallor of his skin. “Since when do you give the orders?”“Since you’re bleeding,” she shot back.Something in her tone silenced the retort. He lowered himself into the chair, breathing carefully, one hand hovering near his ribs. Anna pulled out what little they had salvaged—alcohol wipes, gauze from a battered first-aid tin, a roll of tape gone yellow at the edges.“Not much,” she muttered.“It’ll do.”The wound was ugly up close. Angry flesh

The City Hall doors sighed shut behind them, muting the buzz of clerks and fluorescent hum into the morning air. Outside, the city was fully awake—horns tangled in chorus, shopfronts rattling open, voices rising like the tide. But to Anna, it all seemed distant, muffled, as though she were walking inside a bubble of glass.Her shoes clicked against stone steps, the sound oddly far away. People brushed past, laughing, arguing, dragging bags, spilling words she couldn’t catch. All she could think—over and over, as if her mind had seized on a single loop—was I’m married.Married.Not after months of planning, not after a long courtship, not even after safety had been guaranteed. Married in an office that smelled of old paper and disinfectant, to the man who had both terrified and saved her life. Married to Ethan.She lifted her hand once, almost unconsciously, the diamond scattering sunlight into sparks. It dazzled her eyes, too bright, too much, so she lowered it quickly, as if the weig