Bound By Marriage
The air was sharp with the scent of pine and damp earth, but inside, it was sterile clean lines, minimal furniture, and the hum of a generator buried somewhere beneath the floor.
Bella sat at the small desk in the upstairs bedroom, her fingers tracing the silver locket around her neck, its familiar weight a tether to her mother’s memory. “Strength is quiet, Bella,” her mother had said, years ago, when Bella was just a shy girl hiding behind her father’s desk. “It’s in your mind, not your fists.”