Not for anyone else. Not for the driver waiting near the gate. Not for the world.
Just for her.
Then a voice broke through the rain.
“Sir.”
Jude did not turn immediately. He thought he imagined it. Grief did strange things to the mind.
But the voice came again.
“Sir, please. I need to tell you something.”
He turned.
A girl stood a few feet away, barefoot in the mud.
She could not have been older than nineteen. Her clothes were clean but worn thin. Her feet were dirty from the rain-soaked ground. She looked cold, exhausted, and poor—but her eyes were steady.
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