THE PROXY BRIDE: His bride. Her Secret.
She pressed her ear to the hidden panel as Marcella’s voice slithered through the crack: “Lock this wing. Replace the books with crystal sculptures. And burn that Shakespeare volume—it reeks of failure.”
This was were Amara always crept in after midnight, flashlight beam trembling. The shelves were already half-empty, gaps like missing teeth. Mama’s desk was stripped bare except for the wedged Peter Rabbit. The floor was scattered with torn pages—her translations of Machiavelli, her notes on The Inferno. She gathered the fragments, stuffing them into her cotton dress. Kneeling in the dust, she pressed her scarred wrist to the oak desk, leaving her own mark in the wood grain.