Esme's fingers twitched with the urge to tighten around the woman's throat, to end this whole twisted situation once and for all. But then—her gaze caught on something. A small, almost insignificant detail she had overlooked in her rage.
The bracelet.
A delicate pearl bracelet wrapped around the woman's wrist, worn and slightly faded with time. Esme froze, her breath catching in her throat.
Her mind was yanked back to a distant memory—she was five years old, sitting cross-legged on the floor, carefully threading pearls onto a thin string with tiny, clumsy fingers. She had made that bracelet. For her mother. And she remembered, clear as day, that her mother had promised never to take it off.
Esme's grip loosened.
Her eyes snapped back to the woman's face. The features didn't match—this wasn't her mother. But that bracelet… there was no way it could be anyone else's.
Her stomach twisted. Her mother was standing right in front of her.
