ADAM
The meeting had left a strange weight in my chest—like a knot I couldn't quite untangle. Even now, as I sat at the long dining table with my family, the echoes of Sage's voice lingered in my head.
The confidence in her tone, the way her eyes had met mine—steady, unyielding. It had been years since anyone dared to look at me like that.
And then there was Darius.
The way those two had exchanged glances and laughed as if they shared an old secret—it gnawed at me. I couldn't decide what irritated me more: their ease with each other or the fact that she had laughed at all.
Laughed, in my presence, when every other soul in that room could barely breathe under the tension.
Now, the table buzzed with conversation. Everyone had something to say about her.
"She's a spy," my father said bluntly, his voice cutting through the murmurs. "No woman that unpredictable can be trusted. She's hiding something."
