Chapter 114 Chapter 114
Silence. I checked the phone screen. The call timer was moving; someone was still connected.
“Hello?” I repeated.
Soft breathing filled the line. Faint, almost like someone forgot to mute their microphone instead of actually calling me.
“Who is this?” I asked, and the breathing stopped, then the call disconnected.
I stared at the phone for a few seconds, my heart beating slightly faster than it should have. Spam calls existed, prank calls existed; none of that should have bothered me. But something about that silence felt intentional, not accidental.
“You good?” Jay asked, walking past with a soda.
“Yeah,” I said quickly. “Just a weird call.”
He shrugged and kept walking. I shoved the phone into my pocket and told myself to drop it.
The third thing didn’t show up until the following week. I was leaving work late after finishing a review for the quarterly scan. Most of the office lights were off already, and the hallway felt echo-quiet the way corporate buildings always did after business hours. I stepped into the elevator alone and pressed the lobby button.
Halfway down, my phone buzzed with a message from an unknown number.
UNKNOWN: You work too hard. You should rest more.
I froze, and my stomach dropped like someone cut a rope inside my body. I stared at the message, rereading it at least five times, trying to convince myself it could be random spam or a wrong number, then another message popped up.
UNKNOWN: You forget to eat when you focus. You skipped lunch today.
My hands started shaking slightly; I had indeed skipped lunch, but I hadn’t told anyone that. I barely even noticed it myself until now.
I typed back before I could overthink it.
TESSA: Who is this?
The typing bubble appeared, then disappeared; no response.
The elevator dinged open in the lobby, snapping me out of my frozen panic. I shoved my phone into my purse and walked out quickly, scanning the entrance automatically even though I told myself I was being paranoid and Carlo was waiting for me outside; nothing looked wrong. People were leaving. Security guards stood near the entrance. Cars moved normally through traffic.
Still, the minute I got to the car, I didn't wait for Carlo to get out; I jumped in and locked the door faster than usual once I got inside.
I didn’t tell Kai, not yet anyway.
I knew how he thought. I knew how protective he got when something even slightly threatened me. He wouldn’t overreact loudly, but he would investigate quietly, and sometimes quiet investigations scared me more than loud ones. I wanted proof before I dropped that kind of weight onto him. The flowers could be a coworker being dramatic. The calls could be spam.
The message… okay, that one bothered me more than I wanted to admit, but coincidences existed. Right?
The next few days were normal enough that I almost convinced myself it was all stress imagination. Until Friday afternoon.
I returned from a team meeting to find a small gift bag sitting beside my keyboard. No one else in the office seemed to notice it. I stared at it for a full minute before touching it. Inside sat a protein bar. The exact brand I always grabbed from the vending machine downstairs. My chest tightened instantly.
There was a folded note under it.
You forget meals when you’re busy. I worry about your health.
No name.
Same printed card style as the flowers.
I swallowed hard, looking around the office slowly. People worked normally. Phones rang. Keyboards clicked. Conversations floated across cubicles like usual. No one looked guilty; no one even looked at me.
“Are you okay?” Leanne asked from across the aisle.
“Yeah,” I said quickly, sliding the bag into my drawer like it might bite me.
“Did the meeting go well?”
“Yeah,” I repeated, but my heart wouldn’t slow down. This wasn't happening; this couldn't be happening again. No.
That night, I thought about throwing the gift away. Instead, I shoved it deeper into my desk drawer and locked it like that solved anything.
I stayed late finishing reports, mostly because I didn’t want to sit alone in the house with my thoughts spinning out of control. When I finally left the building, the sun had already dipped low behind the skyline, painting the glass towers gold and orange.
Halfway across the parking lot, to the car, I felt it. That weird prickling sensation crawling up the back of my neck. The instinct that someone was watching me. I turned around quickly, but there was nothing.
Just parked cars. A security camera rotating slowly above the entrance. A man is walking toward his vehicle while scrolling through his phone. I exhaled sharply and forced myself to keep walking. “You’re imagining things,” I told myself. I could see Carlo waiting by the car but couldn't shake it. Maybe it was stress or wedding nerves. Work overload, totally normal explanations. I repeated those excuses all the way home.
Zaiel was sitting on the couch when I walked into the living room, laptop balanced on his knee, tie loosened like he had been working but trying to relax at the same time. He looked up instantly when I stepped inside, and that small shift in his expression, that automatic focus locking onto me, made something in my chest loosen.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey.”
“You look tired,” he said.
“I’m tired,” I admitted, dropping my bag near the chair.
He reached for my hand as I walked past, pulling me gently down beside him. I curled into his side automatically, letting my head rest against his shoulder. The familiar warmth grounded me faster than any breathing exercise ever could.
“Long day?” he asked.
“Just busy,” I said.
He hummed softly, brushing his thumb across my knuckles absentmindedly. That tiny repetitive motion always calmed me. Always.
“You skipped lunch again,” he said casually, and my entire body went still.
“How do you know that?” I asked slowly.
“You do that when you’re stressed,” he said, completely unaware of the panic exploding behind my ribs. “Arthur mentioned you barely touched breakfast too.”
I exhaled, tension loosening slightly. Okay, that was a logical explanation and not creepy, just the observant fiancé and concerned dad.
“Stop analyzing my eating schedule,” I muttered.
“No,” he said simply.
I laughed weakly, pressing closer into him. The house felt safe. It always did; Zaiel felt safe in a way I never expected from someone with his reputation. Still… My brain replayed the message again.
You forget to eat when you focus.
The exact same sentence, the same observation, the same tone. I pushed the thought away aggressively not tonight.
Later, after dinner and a long shower that was supposed to wash stress away but didn’t fully succeed, I climbed into bed beside Zaiel while he finished answering emails on his phone. The room lights were dim, city glow leaking through the curtains in soft blue streaks.
“You’re quiet,” he said, setting his phone down.
“I’m thinking about seating charts,” I lied.
“That sounds like a nightmare.”
“It is.”