Jasmine's POV
The city didn't sleep, but for the first time in years, I wished it would. Neon lights bled through the blinds of my penthouse, cutting thin, white scars across the floor. Two days had passed since The Gilded Veil… since the masked man's voice wrapped around my name like a curse.
I replayed that moment too many times… the rasp in his voice, the faint citrus and smoke on his gloves, the words 'walk away or end up like her.' Every time, my stomach twisted tighter.
And yet, here I was… still at the center of the storm.
The file lay open on my desk. The photos stared back at me… grainy, harsh, wrong. My mother's car, the twisted frame of metal I spent my life believing was an accident. But now, framed beside timestamps, phone records, and an autopsy report that marked '
tampered', it read like murder.
I reached for the mug beside me, realized my hand was shaking, and set it down before the tremor betrayed me.
