Ayla stood outside the old, familiar house, her heart thudding in her chest. The cool night air bit at her skin, but she barely noticed. Her fingers curled around the window frame, the same window she used to sneak out of when she needed to escape the suffocating atmosphere inside.
The house looked the same, almost too the same. The white paint on the walls, the neatly trimmed hedges, and the dim glow of the lights peeking through the curtains. But to Ayla, it wasn’t home. It hadn’t been home for a long time.
She inhaled sharply, her chest tight. She shouldn’t be here. She knew that. But after everything, the betrayal, the humiliation, the burning rage that simmered beneath her skin, she needed answers.
And she’d get them.
Carefully, Ayla climbed through the window, her movements silen
