The clock ticked softly on the wall as Maya sat at the small table in her living room, her sketchpad open in front of her. A warm cup of tea sat untouched beside her hand, growing colder by the minute. The silence in the apartment was thick—comforting, yet heavy, like the air after a storm.

Her pencil moved slowly across the page, tracing the beginning of a new design. She paused now and then, staring at nothing, her mind replaying the events of her first day at Verano.

It hadn’t gone the way she expected.

From the moment she walked into the studio that morning, she could feel it—the stares,...