Chapter 45

RHIANNON

I felt my blood run cold. My ears rang, and in the distance, I could hear my father’s voice—faint, distorted, screaming from somewhere beyond the veil of time. It didn’t feel real. The echoes, the sounds, the chaos—all tangled together. Then came the gunshots. Sharp. Deafening.

A piercing chime followed, ringing through my head like a bell, vibrating through the corners of my mind. The room spun, my body froze, and my thoughts scattered.

“He was killed…” I mumbled under my breath, gasping for air as the memories came flooding back—slow, distorted fragments becoming clear. After all these years, it had taken this long for the truth to crawl its way back into my consciousness.

The dainty moving pocket watch… the strings tied around it… a woman’s soft voice whispering in the dark—her face blurred but familiar. It all connected.

That hurtful memory that had haunted my dreams—I f