A sudden, visceral darkness swept across Leila's features. A tempest was gathering behind the porcelain mask of her face.
Her eyes, usually clear, now flickered with the jagged lightning of a brewing storm.
"You truly expect me to masquerade as the daughter of that woman?" she asked.
Her voice dropped to a glacial whisper that seemed to frost the very air of the drawing room.
"The woman who dismantled my mother's life piece by piece, until there was nothing left but ash?"
She did not wait for justifications. Instead, she turned toward Leon, a jagged smirk cutting across her lips—a smile that held no mirth, only the bitterness of a martyr.
"Forgive me, Leon," she uttered, the apology sounding more like a challenge.
Leon merely offered a languid shrug, his indifference a physical weight in the room.
"As you wish," he replied, his voice doused in apathy. "Consider yourself forgiven. It matters little to me."
