Chapter 4

The cursor blinked at me from my laptop screen like a patient heartbeat, waiting for words that would either damn me or set me free. I'd been staring at the blank post for an hour, my coffee growing cold beside a stack of fashion magazines that suddenly felt like artifacts from another life.

My fingers traced the phoenix pattern on the original sketch spread across my desk, following the graceful arc of wings that had taken me weeks to perfect. But now, in the harsh light of betrayal, I saw what my subconscious had hidden there all along—the subtle shadow…