Chapter One Hundred
Khalid POV
The smell of baked apples and warm cinnamon still clung to my clothes as I carried our heavy bags up the narrow, winding staircase of the cottage. The wooden steps groaned softly under my weight, a sharp contrast to the solid concrete and thick marble of our high-rise apartment in the city. Downstairs, the quiet murmur of the television hummed along with the clinking of dishes. Venessa had insisted on helping her grandmother wash the dinner plates, giving me a strict order to "go up, relax, and find her old room at the end of the hall."
I reached the top landing, my head nearly brushing against the low, sloped ceiling of the second floor. The hallway was narrow, lined with framed photographs of a younger Venessa—smiling with missing front teeth, holding u
