As I stood to leave, my phone vibrated again — this time from an unfamiliar number. My stomach tightened. For a moment, I wondered if Nikolai was calling from another line, but when I answered, a familiar voice greeted me.
“Sienna?”
It was Beatrice — Nikolai’s mother.
My throat tightened. “Mrs. Arvant…”
“Please,” she said softly, her voice trembling. “Don’t call me that. Just Beatrice. I… I heard everything. Can we meet? Please.”
I hesitated. She had always been kind to me — the only one in that house who treated me like family. When I lost my sight, she was the one who stayed beside me while everyone else slowly disappeared.
So I agreed.
When I arrived at her house that evening, she looked older somehow — smaller, weighed down by guilt. Gray strands streaked her neatly styled hair, and exhaustion shadowed her eyes. She didn’t even wait for me to sit before speaking.
“Sienna,” she whispered, clasping my hands, “I’m so sorry for what my son did. I swear, I didn’t know everything. I suspected he wasn’t faithful, but this… I never imagined something like this.”
I blinked away the sting in my eyes. “You don’t need to apologize for him, Beatrice.”