Chapter 241

241 The Ghost Beneath the Rose

Mara

The truth about Alaric hit like a blade to the gut, sharp, cruel, undeniable. No one spoke. We just sat there, hollow and stunned, finally forced to confront what we’d tried too hard to ignore.

Martha trembled violently, her body shrinking into itself like a frightened child. I had to take the phone from her hands just to calm her down. She buried her face into Vander’s chest, clutching his shirt like it was the only thing tethering her to this world.

“Please don’t let him get me,” she whispered. “Please don’t let him come here.”

She sounded so small. So broken. If I’d ever doubted that she tried to take her own life, those doubts were gone now. This woman didn’t want to die. She was terrified of dying. And that realization shattered something in me.

Martha, for all her faults, didn’t deserve this.