Chapter 63: Lured

"Home sweet home," Jess murmured softly, her eyes sweeping over the estate with a mixture of nostalgia and wariness.

Her gaze was sharp and judging, taking in every detail of the place that once held her childhood. The estate loomed before her, unchanged and yet foreign, as though it was frozen in time but distorted by years of absence and untold stories.

She stood behind a slender, ancient tree that had been a silent witness to her youth. It was the same tree that had offered her shade during long, lazy afternoons when life had been simpler, untouched by the darkness that would later creep in.

Jess swallowed hard as images flashed before her eyes—memories of a time when everything was still normal, or at least, as it should have been. The echoes of her past stirred unbidden in the cool air, filling her mind with fragments of a life long buried.