Chapter 164 CHAPTER 164
The midnight visitor
The night felt different. Heavy, thick. Like the air was holding its breath. Richard stood in his living room, staring at the wall clock ticking too loudly above the mantel. Midnight. He should have been asleep, but sleep hadn’t come easily since he walked into the police station earlier that day and did what he never imagined he would do.
He betrayed Ethan. He kept pacing. His mind was a storm of guilt, anxiety, and the memory of Tessa’s terrified eyes. He had convinced himself he did the right thing, that Ethan had become too dangerous, too unpredictable, too close to destroying everything around her.
But now…now he felt something shifting in the air around him. A tension. A warning. His phone buzzed on the coffee table.
UNKNOWN NUMBER: “They escaped. Ethan is gone.”
Richard froze.
His heart punched against his ribs. His eyes skimmed the words again. They escaped. Not he escaped.
“They”…?
He swallowed hard, whispering into the empty room:
“What do you mean… they?”
But the phone didn’t answer.
Outside, the neighbourhood was silent. The type of silence that followed catastrophe, just before the world woke up and realized something terrible had happened. A soft tap hit the window. Richard’s blood went ice cold. Someone was outside.
He walked slowly toward the window, pulled back one slat of the blinds and nearly stumbled back. A shadow stood at his driveway. Tall. Broad. Motionless. Staring directly at the house.
Richard’s chest caved inward. “No… no… no…”
Before he could think, before he could breathe, he heard the front door unlocking from the inside. His keys!!! Someone had taken his keys. Richard’s pulse hammered against his throat as the knob twisted. He stepped back. Then another step. His whole body shaking.
The door swung open, and Ethan stepped inside. Not the polished, smug version of Ethan, not the manipulative charmer who twisted every situation to his advantage. This Ethan looked wild, bloodied knuckles, torn shirt, dirt streaked across his jaw, bruises blooming dark along his cheek. His eyes were burning with rage.
Richard stumbled backward. “E-Ethan… how…how did you…?”
Ethan shut the door calmly, the click echoing through the house like a death sentence.
“Who broke you out?” Richard whispered. “The police said…”
“I didn’t break myself out.” Ethan’s voice was low, harsh, cracking at the edges. “And we’ll get to who did.”
He took a slow, deliberate step forward.
“But right now, Richard…” He tilted his head. His lip curled into something between disgust and pain. “You and I need to talk.”
Richard tried to keep his voice steady, but fear sliced through every syllable. “I didn’t have a choice.”
Ethan laughed a hollow, incredulous sound.
“You always have a choice.”
“I did it for Tessa,” Richard insisted. “You were spiraling. Losing control. I had to protect her.”
“She needed protection,” Ethan snapped. “Yeah?”
He moved closer, and Richard stepped back until his back hit the wall. Ethan’s fist hit the wall beside his head hard enough to splinter wood. Richard flinched violently.
“Do you know what they did to me?” Ethan hissed. “In the van? In the holding cell? Do you know what I went through in those hours because you opened your stupid mouth?”
“I—I’m sorry…”
“You’re not sorry,” Ethan whispered. “Not yet.”
He stepped back, running a trembling hand through his hair. For a moment, he didn’t look like a monster, he looked like a man who had been hunted. Cornered. Shattered. But then his expression hardened.
“How did they find me, Richard?” Ethan asked quietly. “The police knew where I lived. Who I talked to. Where I would be.”
Richard froze even though he expected that question.
“Someone told them,” Ethan murmured. “Someone who had information only a handful of people knew.”
Richard’s throat went dry. “I didn’t…”
“Don’t lie,” Ethan growled.
“I swear to you…”
“RICHARD!”
The shout rattled the windows. Richard flinched as tears pricked his eyes.
“I was trying to protect Tessa,” he whispered. “I thought you would hurt her.”
That stopped Ethan completely. His chest rose and fell sharply. His eyes darkened with a dangerous mixture of hurt and fury.
“You think I would hurt her?” His voice didn’t crack. “Why wouldn’t I? No, tell me…”
“You kidnapped her eight years ago!” Richard blurted out.
Ethan froze. A muscle ticked in his jaw.
“You kept her away from everyone,” Richard said softly. “You isolated her. You controlled her. That is not love, Ethan.”
“Don’t,” Ethan said quietly, stepping so close their noses almost touched. “Don’t stand there in your warm little house, in your comfortable little life, and tell me what love looks like. Not when you have no idea what real fear tastes like.”
Richard swallowed.
Ethan’s voice dropped lower. “Someone else broke me out.”
A sudden bang echoed outside. Both men whipped toward the window. Ethan moved first, pulling Richard by the arm and dragging him down behind the couch.
“What was that?” Richard choked.
“Quiet,” Ethan hissed.
Another sound, tires crunching gravel. A car door shutting. Then footsteps approaching the house.
Richard’s breath hitched. “Oh God…”
Ethan positioned himself between Richard and the door. The footsteps grew louder. Someone stopped on the porch. A shadow moved behind the curtains.
Ethan lowered his voice. “If it’s who I think it is, you’re going to listen to me carefully. Do not speak. Do not move unless I tell you.”
Richard nodded, trembling. A soft knock echoed through the house. Three slow taps. Ethan’s eyes widened in recognition and fear.
Richard whispered, barely able to breathe: “Who is that?”
Ethan swallowed hard. “The same person who ambushed the police van.”
Another three taps.
“Ethan…” Richard whispered.
Ethan clenched his fists.
“That,” he said quietly, “is not the police.”
The knock came again, harder this time.
Ethan pulled Richard farther back.
The shadow outside moved. Then a voice slipped through the door, muffled but unmistakably calm.
“Ethan. Open the door.”
Richard froze. He recognized the voice.
Ethan whispered, “Don’t move.”
Marcus knocked again.
“Ethan. We need to talk.”
The air turned to ice. Ethan leaned in, whispering to Richard.
“It’s Marcus.”
The door handle rattled.
Marcus spoke again, voice sharper. “Ethan. Open this door before I open it myself.”
Richard shut his eyes. Ethan stepped forward.