The days passed with unusual calm. Snow fell gently upon the Archer estate, painting the landscape in pristine white. It was the kind of quiet that settles before a storm, though no one could tell—not yet.
Inside the warm glow of their home, Sara moved like a woman reborn. She smiled more often, laughed with her children, and allowed Nick to hold her without freezing under his touch. Her cooking returned. Her old dresses saw the light again. She even joined Ana in braiding dolls' hair and helped Anthony assemble his wooden models by the fireplace.
Nick watched her with a growing mixture of love... and concern.
She had changed—but in ways he couldn't explain. She seemed stronger, steadier… but also sharper. There were moments when her eyes became unreadable, her voice rehearsed. And while she never spoke of the past, sometimes, in the stillness of night, he would catch her sitting by the window, staring into the distance like someone waiting for a sign—or a threat.
He didn't question it at first.
He was simply too grateful to have her back.
But suspicion is like a whisper in the dark: quiet, persistent, and impossible to ignore once it finds a home in the heart.
One evening, while Sara was bathing Ana, Nick stood in his study holding a small envelope. It had arrived by post, no return address. Inside, a single photograph: Sara walking alone through a narrow alleyway in the city's lower district. The timestamp read two days ago.
Nick's blood turned cold.
Why would she lie?
Why had she said she spent the whole afternoon at the bookstore with the twins?
His grip tightened.
Meanwhile, in the children's room, Anthony sat cross-legged on the rug, flipping through an old photo album. He stared at a picture of Sara—young, smiling, before everything had happened.
He frowned.
—"Mommy?" he asked as she entered, wrapping Ana in a soft towel.
—"Yes, sweetheart?"
—"What happened to you? Before you came home?"
Sara paused.
The towel slipped slightly from her hands.
—"What do you mean, love?"
—"Daddy always said you went away because bad people took you. But I heard Uncle Shaco say... they made you forget who you were."
Sara sat beside him on the bed, brushing back his blonde hair.
—"Sometimes, when something hurts too much," she said slowly, "our minds protect us by forgetting. It's a way to survive."
Anthony looked up at her with his father's exact eyes.
—"But do you remember now?"
She hesitated.
—"I remember enough."
He leaned his head on her shoulder, holding her tightly.
—"I'm glad you came back."
—"So am I," she whispered, closing her eyes. "More than anything."
Later that night, after the children had gone to sleep, Nick found Sara reading by the fire.
He sat across from her in silence.
The photo still burned a hole in his pocket.
—"Sara," he said softly, "can I ask you something?"
She looked up, a hint of tension behind her smile.
—"Of course."
—"Where were you two days ago, around noon?"
Her fingers curled slightly around the book.
—"With the twins. We went to the bookstore, then walked in the park."
Nick said nothing at first.
Then, slowly, he slid the photograph across the coffee table.
Sara's expression didn't change.
Not one muscle moved.
But her eyes... dimmed.
—"Why are you following me?" she asked, almost a whisper.
—"I didn't. This came in the mail."
—"From whom?"
—"I don't know."
A long silence stretched between them.
Then Sara rose from her seat and stood before him, her silhouette lit by the fire.
—"There are things I cannot tell you, Nick," she said quietly. "Not because I don't trust you... but because I love you too much to drag you back into that world."
—"Then bring me in, Sara. Let me fight with you. Let me protect you."
—"No," she replied, voice firm. "This fight is mine. What they did to me... what I've had to do since... It would break you."
Nick stood and pulled her into his arms.
—"Nothing about you could break me," he murmured. "Only losing you again would."
Sara melted into his embrace, burying her face in his neck.
She said nothing more.
But that night, when Nick was fast asleep beside her, she rose from bed, walked to her desk, and opened a hidden drawer. Inside was another photograph—this one stained with ash and the faint scent of chemicals. It depicted a face burned into her memory.
One of the last surviving heads of the agency.
She touched the corner of the image, her fingers trembling.
Her voice was a whisper, barely audible:
—"You're next."