Chapter 1390
Chapter 1389:
“No.” The word cracked coming out of Adah’s mouth. “This can’t p>
If her mother wasn’t here, where the hell had she gone?
Adah couldn’t accept it. Wouldn’t. She broke into a run, tearing through weeds and rot toward the villa.
Elliana bolted after her without hesitation. Rita and Sophie exchanged one stricken look before following, Allan and Cole crashing through behind them.
Sally had never wavered in her devotion to Rita. Everyone knew it—she would’ve planted herself right here at the villa, counting the days until Rita returned.
So where the hell had Sally gone? Had someone dragged her away against her will? Had those assassins from years past finally tracked her down and killed her within these very walls? Or had fate dealt some other cruel hand?
Dark possibilities spiraled through the group’s minds like vultures circling carrion.
The group clustered at the entrance, staring at those two closed doors with dread pooling in their stomachs. Nobody dared to push them open. Nobody wanted to find bones scattered across the threshold.
Adah bit down hard on her lip until copper flooded her tongue. Her hands curled into fists so tight that her nails carved crescents into her palms. She couldn’t tear her eyes from those doors, and her whole body shook like a leaf in a storm.
Through all those years hunting for her mother, Adah had rehearsed a thousand different reunions in her head. Never once had she imagined this. If those doors swung open to reveal her mother’s skeleton, she’d be trapped in that nightmare forever. No waking up. No escape.
Adah had marched through Delta alongside Elliana, wading through blood and chaos without batting an eye—but standing here now, terror squeezed her chest so hard that she could barely pull in air.
Elliana ached to comfort Adah, to say something that might ease the weight pressing down on both of them. But when she opened her mouth, emotion knotted in her throat and strangled the words.
𝙍𝙚𝙘𝙤𝙧𝙙 𝙤𝙛 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙡 𝙧𝙚𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙚 @
Back when Elliana and Adah were little, Sally had showered Elliana with affection, loving her as fiercely as if she’d carried her in her own womb. Elliana had adored Sally. The thought of Sally dying here, alone and forgotten, gutted Elliana just as deeply as it gutted Adah. They shared the same gnawing dread, the same suffocating grief.
Just then, Allan moved to Adah’s side and wrapped his fingers around hers. “Don’t be afraid,” he murmured. “I’m right here with you p>
Then, without releasing Adah’s hand, Allan pushed the doors open.
The doors clearly hadn’t been touched in years. Cobwebs draped the corners like tattered lace, and the hinges shrieked in rusty protest as the doors gave way.
Late afternoon light slanted through the opening, painting long shadows that stretched across the ground like reaching fingers.
Adah’s heart slammed against her ribs so violently that she thought it might crack through bone. She squeezed her eyes shut, too paralyzed by fear to look.
Then, Allan’s voice broke through the fear. “It’s okay. What you’re dreading isn’t here p>
Adah’s breath snagged. She snapped her eyes open and swept her gaze across the villa’s interior.