Isabella POV
The penthouse safe house felt like a gilded cage, all steel and glass and modern luxury designed to keep the world at bay. I stood at the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city, still wearing the black dress I'd put on a lifetime ago, the adoption documents clutched in my trembling hands like evidence of a crime I didn't know I'd committed.
Isabella Morrison. Not Sterling. Morrison.
The name felt foreign on my tongue, like trying on someone else's identity and finding it didn't quite fit. Twenty-five years of believing I was Richard Sterling's daughter, twenty-five years of carrying his legacy and his expectations, and it had all been a lie.
"Bella," Damien said quietly behind me, his voice carrying that rough edge that always made something tighten low in my belly. "You need to eat something. Drink something. You're in shock."
