Chapter 163

Kate POV

I sat on the curb for what felt like hours, the cold air seeping into my bones until it didn’t even feel like cold anymore, just a dull, constant pressure against my skin. My eyes stayed fixed on the smoke still curling in the distance, refusing to fully fade away, like it was the only proof that what had just happened was real.

My house was gone. My money was gone. Marcus was gone.

Everything I had built my life around had been stripped away piece by piece until there was nothing left to stand on. For a while, I just stayed there, letting the weight of it sit on me fully, because there was no point pretending it didn’t hurt.

But even then… I still had connections.

That thought was the only thing that finally made me move.

I forced myself up slowly, wiping my face with the back of my hand, dragging in a breath that didn’t feel like it reached my lungs properly. Davis’s old business partners came into my mind one by one, names I had