Chapter 71

• KARIN
• The silence in Rowan’s office felt different now. It did not weigh on my chest. It did not demand that I stay small or quiet. It felt charged, like the air before a storm breaks. Something was waiting. Something had already shifted.
• I sat in the chair across from his desk. It was the same chair where I had once sat stiff and careful, listening to cold orders and sharp dismissals. I remembered how I used to hold my breath there. How I learned to keep my face blank. Tonight, that memory felt distant. I was not that woman anymore. I was not broken. I was not shrinking.