"You disturb Maggie's rest for this whore."
"Samuel, you are unfit to be a father!"
Samuel frowned. "Sophia, calm down."
"Our child is gone." "The dead are gone, the living remain."
What prize is living's supremacy? Old love cannot rival new love.
I bore the searing pain and raised my pistol once more.
But before I could fire again, Serena Rowe seized the full urn behind Samuel and smashed it down.
The box that held my longing and hope was scattered and swept away by the wind.
"Maggie!"
I lunged forward, screaming with hysteria.
Rage drowned the pain.
When I scooped the ashes into my arms, I froze, startled. For a moment, time stretched; memories rushed back in jagged, relentless waves — the child's first laugh, the night we concealed her in a box to hide from killers, the smell of smoke and iron, Samuel's desperate oath over a severed finger. Each memory struck like a bell, tolling loss and a promise of blood. I felt every wound reopen, every betrayal sharpen, and beneath the frenzy a cold clarity settled: whoever had dug here, whoever cheered or laughed had to answer with equal fury soon.
Blood soaked the hem between my legs.
My Maggie seemed to be leaving me again.