Mara
I couldn’t shake the image of Martha—her voice cracking, her mask slipping, desperation pouring out of her like a leak she couldn’t stop. I never thought I’d see the day. Martha was many things: manipulative, cold, cunning. But vulnerable?
Never.
And yet there she was, begging Lucian. Twenty-three years under someone’s thumb. That wasn’t a casual mistake. That was a lifetime of fear. Whatever she’d done… it had to be severe. Something dark enough to warrant theft, secrecy, and now… collapse.
Lucian didn’t care. I understood. He’d carried too much of Martha’s damage on his back already. But this wasn’t about sympathy. It was about threats. If someone had that kind of leverage over her, we couldn’t ignore it—not if it could ripple back and touch the rest of us. We needed to know wha
