Chapter Six

Sloane’s POV

The cars pulled away just after nine.

I stood at the upstairs window and watched both vehicles disappear down the street, my mother’s hand lifting in a final wave from the passenger seat of Claire’s car. The sudden quiet that settled over the house felt different from every previous silence—thicker, charged, final. No overlapping voices. No risk of footsteps in the hallway. Only the two of us left inside walls that had spent days holding the tension in check.

I went downstairs.

Jasper was in the kitchen, back to me, pouring coffee like the morning was ordinary. The set of his shoulders said otherwise. He knew...