Chapter 25

• “Are you serious right now?” Crown’s voice was a low, dangerous growl, his hands gripping the back of the chair like he might break it in half. He stood a little too close to Rogan, tension crackling in the space between them. “We’ve been doing everything we can to protect her, and now you want to push her further away?”
• Rogan’s jaw clenched, his eyes burning with frustration. “You think I don’t know what’s at stake here, Crown? We both know how much danger she’s in. But we can’t just coddle her through this. She needs to trust us, or everything we’ve done up until now is pointless.”
• The room felt suffocating, the air thick with the weight of their unspoken emotions. I watched from the corner, feeling like an outsider in a world I was barely beginning to understand.