Chapter 43: Change Of Mind
Anita’s gaze remained fixed on the car’s window, the buildings moving past like shadows in a dream. It was early afternoon, the city was alive, but her mind was lost.
Tessa had been her plan A.
Meeting her at the hospital that day, Anita had intended to use her — a well-timed pawn in her game of revenge against her husband.
But now... she had offered her a hand in friendship.
And friends weren’t meant to be pawns.
Anita exhaled, slow and quiet, her breath fogging the window slightly. The shift had been subtle at first — a pause in her gut when Tessa cried, a tightness in her throat when she said "How do you survive loving someone who leaves you with a life sentence?"
But now it wasn’t subtle anymore. It was a crack, deep and raw, stretching across the glass wall she’d built around her years ago.
Her jaw clenched as she leaned back into the seat, arms folded, fingers drumming lightly on her elbow. She hadn’t expected to care. Not really. Not beyond schemes. And yet, she saw something in that girl’s eyes. Something she remembered too well — the look of someone who’d been betrayed and branded and left to rot while the world kept spinning like nothing had happened.
"Mtchew," she hissed with irritation.
She didn’t do this. She didn’t get involved with people’s lives, except they were extremely close.
But there she was — already thinking of a future for Tessa, already planning which doctors to call, which legal hands to grease, which press vultures to feed just enough without letting them tear the girl apart. Already sketching out a path of survival for her, not just vengeance.