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On the third morning of Marina’s self-imposed exile, as the grey light filtered weakly through the guesthouse window, the profound silence that had become her reluctant companion was abruptly, jarringly shattered. The shrill, insistent ring of her phone cut through the desolate stillness like a knife, sending a jolt of anxiety through her already frayed nerves. Her heart hammered against her ribs; who could possibly be calling her? With a hesitant hand, she picked it up, half-expecting some further bad news, some new decree of her impending ruin. But the voice on the other end was a shock unto itself. It was Nadine. Yet, the woman speaking was utterly unrecognizable from the venomous adversary who had gloated on the pavement just days before. The icy certainty, the bitter triumph, the cutting disdain that had characterized Nadine’s voice were gone, replaced by an unmistakable tremor of genuine distress, a raw vulnerability that Marina had never heard from her. “You need to come back to the flat,” Nadine stammered, her words laced with an urgency bordering on desperation. “Please. I’ve found something. You have to see this.” The plea was so unexpected, so starkly at odds with Nadine’s previous cruelty, that it momentarily stunned Marina. What could possibly have transformed Elias’s ruthless ex-wife into this trembling, pleading figure? What could she have found in the apartment that would warrant such a desperate, urgent summons, breaking the very silence she had fought so hard to impose? The mystery deepened, hinting at a truth far stranger than fiction, pulling Marina back into the heart of the enigma she thought she had escaped.
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