I should’ve died the night the darkness swallowed me whole.But fate kept me alive—maybe out of cruelty, maybe out of mercy. I still haven’t figured out which.My name is Bianca, and I’ve survived things people don’t speak about.I learned to live with silence, to breathe through pain, to trust no one.Not rescuers.Not protectors.Not promises.Then she arrived.Esmeralda—tiny, orphaned, eyes too big for her small face.They said I had to take care of her.They said she needed me.But no one warned me how much I would need her… how her little hand in mine would shake loose feelings I buried years ago.And then there’s Wayne—the bodyguard assigned to watch me, to “keep me safe.” Steady. Impossible to read.The kind of man who looks at me like he sees the ghosts I’m trying to hide.I don’t want their company.I don’t want their kindness.I don’t want the warmth in Wayne’s voice or the trust in Esmeralda’s eyes.But life has a cruel sense of humor—because the more I push them away, the more they slip into the cracks of my broken places.And now I face the question I’ve avoided my whole life:Can someone like me—shattered, scarred, stained by the past—ever learn to trust again?Or will the darkness I’ve carried for so long swallow the three of us whole?