Lahat ng Kabanata ng IN LOVE WITH HIS ENEMY: Kabanata 71 - Kabanata 78

Eliza's POVThe word burned into my skull.Too late.I stood in Clara's empty room, the dust still settling on the windowsill, the cold seeping through the glass. Her bed was unmade. Her paper crane was gone. The only sign she'd ever been here was the faint scent of her shampoo and the silence where her laugh should have been.Adam was beside me in an instant. His hand found mine. Squeezed."We'll find her.""They took her. While we were planning. While I was away" My voice cracked. "While I was destroying them, they took my daughter."He pulled me close. Held me against his chest."This isn't your fault.""Whose fault is it, Adam? I had the folder. I had the key. I could have run. Could have hidden. Could have protected her. Instead, I chose to fight.""You chose to end it. So she wouldn't have to."I pulled back. Looked at him. In his eyes, I saw the same fear I felt. But beneat

Eliza's POV The sun rose over Los Angeles like nothing had changed. But everything had changed. The folder was ash. The key was melted into nothing. Forty years of my mother's work, gone in a fire I'd watched from a rearview mirror. Sarah's duplicates were out there somewhere, buried in systems I didn't control, but the original the truth in my mother's own handwriting...was smoke. I stood at the window of Clara's room and watched her sleep. The paper crane was still in her hand. Her face was peaceful. She didn't know about the phone call, the DNA test, the man who'd promised to kill everything I loved. She didn't need to know. Not yet. Adam found me there. He didn't speak. Just stood beside me, his shoulder against mine, his breath matching mine. In. Out. In. Out. The rhythm of survival. "We need to move," he said finally. "I know." "Reyes has a safe house. Montana. Remote. No one knows about it." "How long?" "Until we figure out our next move. Until we fin

Eliza's POVThe fifth address was a farmhouse in the hills.By the time we reached it, the sky was turning gray. I'd given four men the same choice: walk away or be destroyed. Four men had chosen to run. Four families had been dismantled before dawn.But the fifth address was different.This one had no gates. No cameras. No guards. Just a single light burning in a window, and smoke rising from a chimney.Reyes's voice through the speaker: "Eliza, that's the last one. The man who started it all.""Marcus Webb?""His father. The one who's been hiding since the Collective fell. He's been waiting for you."I looked at the farmhouse. At the light in the window."Then let's not keep him waiting."The WalkAdam wanted to come. I told him to wait.The grass was wet with dew. The path was overgrown, like no one had walked it in years. I climbed the steps to the porch and knoc

Eliza's POVFive years later.Clara's House had grown.What started as a small shelter in my mother's memory had become a network—safe houses across three states, a legal fund for women fighting for custody, a job training program that had placed hundreds of survivors into careers. The garden where Clara had planted her first tree was now a sprawling sanctuary, full of flowers and benches and paths that wound through quiet corners.I stood at the entrance of the main building, watching the morning light catch the plaque on the wall.Clara Sterling — She dreamed of a place where women could start again. Her daughter made it real.My mother's photograph hung beside it. Young. Hopeful. The same face I saw in the mirror every day."Mom?"I turned. Clara was fifteen now, tall and steady, with Adam's eyes and my stubborn chin. She held a paper crane in her hand—the same kind she'd been folding since she was three