Chapter 86

• I had always prided myself on making calculated decisions, cutting through the noise and focusing on what really mattered. But that was before everything changed. Before I learned that betrayal, deceit, and loss could come from the most unexpected places.
• I remembered the day I walked into the room, feeling a familiar, icy silence hanging in the air. I had just returned from a long, solitary trip one that took me thousands of miles to get to Rafael. As I sat down, I could feel the weight of the world pressing down on me, but beneath the surface, there was something more. Something fierce.
• Rafael, ever the stoic figure, noticed it too. He gestured for me to take a moment, giving me the space to collect myself.