Elara wiped the dirt from her hands on her apron. She was thirty-two, with soft features and eyes the color of polished hazelnuts. To the outside world—and to her husband—she was Elara the housewife, the orphan who’d gotten lucky marrying a rising star. The quiet woman content to stay in the background picked up the phone from the patio table.
It was a secure alert.
ALERT: VIP guest access revoked. Name: Elara Thorn. Authorized by: Julian Thorn.
Elara stared at the screen. She didn’t cry. She didn’t gasp. She didn’t throw the phone.
Instead, the warmth drained from her eyes, replaced by an absolute, terrifying cold. She swiped away the notification and opened a different app—one that required a fingerprint, a retinal scan, and a sixteen-digit access code.
