“Where did you get this?”
The woman stepped back immediately, panic flashing across her face. “Let me go.”
He moved fast, blocking the door.
“That locket belongs to my daughter,” he said, voice breaking. “My missing daughter.”
The shop froze. Even the rain seemed quieter.
The woman’s lips parted, but no sound came out.
Then, barely a whisper, she said:
“…Clara?”
The jeweler went still.
Something in her expression changed — not recognition of him, but fear of the name itself.
Her breathing turned sharp. She looked at the locket like it was burning her hands.
And then she said it.
A sentence that shattered everything he thought he knew:
“That’s the name my mother told me never to answer to.”
