The mansion, with its marble floors and chandelier light, stopped feeling like a home and started feeling like exactly what Fernando had said earlier.
A crime scene.
The powder jar sat on the counter beside the vial and the orange juice like the final footprints of a lie.
Viven tried to speak to the officers with that same warm voice she’d used on Fernando for months, but it didn’t work in the face of evidence. Her words slid off the room like water off glass.
Elena was wheeled out under a blanket, eyes wide, hand clenched around Immani’s until the last possible second.
Fernando walked beside her, one hand on the wheelchair, the other shaking with the weight of what he’d allowed.
Immani followed, not because she had to, but because Elena’s eyes asked her to.
In the driveway, under flashing lights, Elena looked up at Fernando.
“Are you really staying?” she whispered.
Fernando’s throat tightened.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said, voice firm. “Not ever again.”
Elena’s eyes filled.
And for the first time that night, she didn’t look at anyone else for permission to believe him.
Weeks later, the doctors confirmed what Immani and Caleb had already known in their bones.