The Vale estate was drowning in black. Not quiet grief. Not soft mourning. But something heavier, louder.
Structured. Calculated. Women in suffocating designer dresses. Men in tailored suits, whispering behind gloved hands. Eyes watching. Measuring. It didn't feel like four lives had been lost.
It felt like a throne had been emptied. And everyone was waiting to see who would sit on it next.
—
At the front. Madam Vale broke. Completely. The composure she carried into the Pedro mansion the night before was gone. Shattered. Because there were no bodies. No faces. No final goodbyes.
Just sealed caskets… holding what had been identified through DNA. Fragments. Pieces. A life reduced to confirmation reports.
Her cries tore through the ceremony, raw and unfiltered. Even the in-laws, so composed moments ago, couldn't hold themselves together anymore.
Julian stood beside Amara, his hand tightly wrapped around hers. Too tightly.
