---- Chapter 3 Blood from my face dripped onto the hardwood floor as I crawled on my hands and knees, ignoring the searing pain across my cheek. My fingers frantically searched every corner, every shadow, every crack between the floorboards. "Where are they?" I whispered desperately. " Please, they have to be here somewhere." Those tiny white teeth were all I had left of my son. Five precious baby teeth that he'd proudly given me over the years, each one carefully wrapped in tissue paper and stored in that wooden box. "Mommy, look! The tooth fairy is going to come tonight!" he'd said just six months ago when his last molar came loose. Instead of leaving it under his pillow, he'd insisted I keep it with the others. "So we can always be together, even when I'm grown up," he'd explained with the innocent ---- wisdom only children possess. Now four of those teeth lay scattered somewhere in this room, and one had been ground to powder under Ethan's careless foot. I found one near the couch leg, another behind the armchair. But the third and fourth remained missing, lost in the chaos of children's tears and adult cruelty. My hands shook as I clutched the two teeth I'd recovered. Such tiny things to carry so much love, so much memory. My son was dead, murdered by his own father's negligence, and I couldn't even keep his final gifts safe. The pain that had been building in my chest for weeks finally found its voice. I threw back my head and released a sound that came from the deepest part of my soul-a howl that carried all the grief, rage, and heartbreak of a mother who'd ---- lost everything. It echoed through the house, raw and primal and utterly heartbroken. "Oh, for crying out loud," Damon's voice cut through my anguish like a blade. ''What theatrical performance is this supposed to be?" I looked up at him through tears, still clutching those two precious teeth. Serena stood beside him, her hand possessively on his arm. The satisfaction in her eyes was barely concealed now that she'd gotten what she wanted. "Damon," she said in that sickeningly sweet voice, "I think she's having some kind of breakdown. Maybe she's upset because she sees how much you care about me and the children now?" "Ts that it, Aria?" Damon's voice dripped with disgust. "All this drama because you're jealous?