Chapter 178

Reina

**Chapter 11: A Moment of Peace (Reina's POV)**

I watched Ethan as he slept on the couch, his chest rising and falling in slow, steady breaths. The bandages on his side were clean now, though the memory of the blood and panic from earlier still made my heart race. It was strange how quickly things had shifted. One minute we were fine, living our lives, and the next, everything felt like it was spiraling out of control.

But looking at him now, vulnerable and asleep, I realized something: I didn’t want to keep fighting. I didn’t want us to keep hurting each other with secrets. All I wanted was for things to go back to the way they were. I wanted to believe that we could still have that—just us, without all the danger and lies that had crept into our lives.

My phone buzzed quietly on the coffee table, breaking the silence in the room. I quickly grabbed it before it woke Ethan and saw that it was a text from Sarah, my best friend. She’d been asking how things were going between Etha