Tainted Judgment

PROLOGUE

There are two kinds of people in the world,
Those who live with the truth,
And those who live with what they believe is the truth.

Sometimes, the difference between the two is a single night.

Bella Sandrov (25)
learned this the night her sister died,
Grief didn't arrive all at once, It came quietly, almost gently, before it learned how to drown her, She stood barefoot in a hospital corridor, her hand still warm from holding one that had already gone cold, while doctors whispered and her parents forgot how to breathe properly.
Something inside her hardened.
her elder sister, her twin in everything that mattered had been light, Where Bella burned, lily softened.
Where Bella questioned the world, lily believed in it.
And someone took her away.
The police called it a brutal crime.
The papers called it tragic.
But none of those words explained the empty chair at the dining table.
What mattered was the face Bella could no longer forget.

Mikhail Romanov (25)
Charming, Respected, Untouchable..
The kind of man people trusted without question,
And the man Bella believed destroyed her family.
Logic whispered doubts.
Grief screamed louder.
Bella didn't cry, She didn't shatter, She didn't fall apart,

She planned.