Chapter Five: The Empty Vow

When Mira touched it, ringing drowned the street. She saw her mother kneeling in a burning cabin, pressing a tape into the floral foam beneath white roses. Clara Gu, stabbed in the abdomen, held the door shut with her body. “Mira will find it,” Lena said. “Don’t let her avenge us.” Clara coughed blood. “Let her live.” The vision lasted three seconds. Mira woke with Adrian’s hand between her skull and the table’s edge. His knuckles had split. “Your aunt wanted you to live,” she said. “So did your mother.” Words left twelve years earlier had finally reached the two people meant to hear them. The key belonged to a boathouse at Pier Seven, now owned by a logistics company Marcus controlled. His wedding to Iris was scheduled for the next day.