Chapter 62 — What Healing Actually Looks Like
The message stayed on Kiera's screen long after the room went dark.
Someone who survived him first.
She didn't reply right away.
For years, survival had taught her one rule above all others: not every hand offered was safe. Some were traps. Some were debts disguised as kindness.
She closed the laptop gently and pressed her palms against it, grounding herself in the solidness of the moment. Down the hall, Leo slept. His soft breaths rose and fell through the baby monitor, steady and unaware of how close the world had come to shifting him away from the only safety he knew.
Kiera stood and walked barefoot to the window.
The city looked calm from up here. Lights glowing. Lives continuing. It struck her how violence rarely looked violent from the outside. How chaos could hide inside routine.
She thought of her father.
Not the man dragged away by security.
The one who taught her to read footsteps.
The one who taught her silence.
