Whatever Rose had been tangled in?—
Whatever shadow had followed her?—
It would not touch Sabine.
Not if I had anything to say about it.
I looked at Kane again.
He saw the shift.
I knew he did.
Because his expression changed slightly.
Less restraint.
More readiness.
This wasn’t just about answers anymore.
This was about protection.
And for the first time since landing in Paris, my grief wasn’t just hollow ache.
It had direction.
Rose had built a life here.
She had left behind a daughter.
And whether she’d meant to or not?—
She had just handed me something far more dangerous than a mystery.
She had handed me someone to fight for. And I had never been very good at standing back when someone I loved needed defending.
A strange calm threaded through me, steadying my pulse.
For days, I had felt untethered. Unmoored. Like I was floating through Paris chasing the outline of a life that had already slipped through my fingers.
Now, there was something solid in front of me.
A child with Rose’s eyes.
A little girl who would one day ask harder questions thanDo you live in America?
She would ask why her mother died.
Why she had been a secret.
Why her American family hadn’t been there sooner.
And I didn’t know yet how I would answer those questions.
But I knew I would be there when she asked them.
Sabine looked up from her coloring and caught me staring. She gave me a shy, tentative smile. The kind children offer when they’re trying to decide if someone is safe.
