I pressed two fingers to her wrist.
Her pulse was fast.
Too fast.
“What happened?” I asked.
Maya swallowed and touched her throat, then winced.
“She said I was trapping Marcus. She said their family didn’t build wealth for generations just so I could breed my way into it.”
My hand tightened around her wrist.
I made myself loosen it.
“She shoved me,” Maya said.
The words came out flat because the body sometimes tells the truth before the mind can afford to feel it.
“Down the stairs. And when I was on the floor, she kept yelling. She kept saying my baby didn’t belong in their family.”
There are sentences a mother hears and survives.
Then there are sentences that make something old and buried open its eyes.
“Where was Marcus?” I asked.
Maya closed her good eye.
That was the answer before she said anything.
“He was there.”
