Chapter 163 Chapter 163

Chapter 163 Chapter 163
The house was completely quiet when Mia woke. For a moment she didn’t know what had pulled her out of sleep. Then the dry tightness in her throat registered, and she carefully pushed the covers back. Sophia was a warm weight on the other side of the bed, breathing evenly, one arm tucked under the pillow. Mia moved slowly so she wouldn’t wake her, eased the boot into place, and stood.

The hallway was dark except for the thin strip of night-light Laura always left on near the stairs. Mia held the banister and made her way down in the uneven rhythm she had gotten used to step, careful shift of weight, step. The kitchen tiles were cool under her good foot. She filled a glass from the tap and drank half of it standing at the sink, looking out at the black shape of the backyard through the window over the drain, sleep still felt far away. She set the glass down, pulled her phone from the pocket of her shorts, and leaned against the counter while the screen lit up the small space around her.

Social media opened to a familiar mix of racing accounts and random recommendations. She scrolled without real purpose at first. Then the algorithm offered her an edit old footage of Kai from an interview two seasons ago, cut against more recent clips of him on the podium. Someone had layered soft music under it. The caption read like a love letter from a fan who had been watching him for years.
Mia watched it once then again. In the older interview he looked younger, a little sharper around the edges, answering questions with the same controlled confidence he still used in front of cameras. The edit jumped to him climbing out of the car after a win, helmet off, hair damp, the half-smile he only wore when the result had been clean. Another cut, him in a team hoodie on a pit wall, listening more than speaking.
She murmured under her breath, almost without meaning to.
“You look tired in the new ones.”
The video looped. She let it.
“You always push too hard when no one’s watching the right things.”
Another scroll came with another edit. This one was quieter just clips of him sitting through press conferences, jaw tight, eyes steady, the public version of the man who had fallen asleep on a video call with lipstick makeup still on his neck and then been put under by a pill he shouldn’t have taken. Mia’s thumb hovered over the screen. The kitchen stayed dark around the glow of the phone.
“I’m coming back tomorrow,” she said softly, as if he could hear her through the old footage. “You’d better be awake.”
A sound cut through the quiet not from inside the house. From outside a soft scrape, then the faint shift of something against the side of the property near the living room windows, Mia’s head lifted. She locked the phone and stood very still, listening. Another sound closer to the porch.

She moved toward the front of the house without turning on lights, one hand on the wall for balance. Through the narrow window beside the front door she could see the dark shape of the porch and, beyond it, the front path. For a second the silhouette of a man stood near the edge of the steps tall, still, facing the house. Her heart slammed once, hard. Kai.

The thought arrived complete and irrational. He had driven through the storm. He had come to find her. He was standing outside her parents’ house in the middle of the night because he was finally awake and she wasn’t there. She didn’t stop to check the logic. She unlocked the door and pulled it open, already stepping out onto the porch with her weight on her good leg and the boot awkward beneath her.
“Kai…?”
The silhouette turned, It was not Kai. The man was wrong in every way once the porch light triggered by the open door washed over him. Different height and different build. A dark hoodie, the hood up, face mostly in shadow. He was close enough to the windows that it was clear he had been looking in, or trying to. The second the light hit him he stepped back hard, then turned and moved fast down the path toward the street.
Mia’s voice came out sharp. “Hey….!”
Inside the house, footsteps exploded.
Mark’s voice first, loud and fully awake.
“Mia?”
Then Laura and then Sophia’s quicker steps on the stairs. The living room light snapped on. Mark reached the open door in seconds, took one look at Mia on the porch and the figure disappearing into the dark, and went past her in bare feet and sleep pants, already shouting after the man.
“Hey! Stop right there!”

The stranger didn’t stop. By the time Mark reached the end of the path the street was empty. A car engine started somewhere further down the block and faded. Mark stood at the edge of the property for a long moment, breathing hard, then came back up the steps with his face set in hard lines.
Laura pulled Mia inside by the arm. Sophia shut the door and locked it in one motion. The four of them stood in the entryway under the bright overhead light, the sudden quiet of the house pressing in after the noise. Mark turned on Mia first.
“What were you doing outside?”
“I heard something.”
“And you opened the door? With a broken leg? In the middle of the night? Alone?”
Laura’s voice was high with leftover fear. “You could have been hurt. You could have…”
“I thought….” Mia stopped herself. The real reason sat on her tongue and she swallowed it. She was not going to stand in her parents’ entryway and admit she had rushed toward a stranger because she had convinced herself, for one stupid second, that Kai had driven through a storm to stand on their porch.
“I thought it might be a neighbor,” she said instead. “Or someone checking the property after the storm. I didn’t think.”
Mark stared at her. “You didn’t think that’s the problem. You heard a noise and you walked toward it.”
Sophia stayed quiet, watching Mia’s face too closely. Mia didn’t meet her eyes.
Laura locked the deadbolt a second time, then checked the side window. “We’re calling it in even if he’s gone. Someone was on the property.”
Mark nodded once, still looking at his daughter. “You’re going back upstairs now, no more middle-of-the-night water runs without telling someone, are we clear?”
“Sure” Mia said.
She let Sophia help her up the stairs. The adrenaline was already turning into a shaky, cold residue in her hands. In the bedroom Sophia closed the door and turned to her, voice low.
“You didn’t think it was a neighbor.”
Mia sat on the edge of the bed and started unstrapping the boot. “Drop it.”
“Mia.”
“I said drop it, please.”
Sophia studied her for another second, then exhaled and nodded once. She didn’t push further. They settled back under the covers in silence. Downstairs the low sound of Mark’s voice on the phone with local police carried faintly up the stairs, then faded. The house gradually returned to its nighttime quiet, but it felt different now more alert, less soft. Sometime later a soft knock sounded at the bedroom door. Sophia was already half-asleep and Mia sat up.
Mark opened the door just enough to step inside. He closed it quietly behind him and stood there for a moment in the dark, the shape of him familiar even without the light.
“Are you still awake?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He came over and sat on the very edge of the bed, careful of her leg. For a few seconds he didn’t speak. When he did, his voice was lower than it had been in the entryway, stripped of the sharp edge of fear.
“I know you didn’t tell me everything about why you went out there.”
Mia’s fingers curled in the blanket. “Dad…”
“I’m not asking you to.” He looked at her profile in the dark. “I’m just telling you I’m worried. You’ve been carrying a lot even here and even when you’re supposed to be resting. I see it and your mother sees it. And tonight you walked toward something that could have been dangerous because whatever is on your mind is louder than your common sense.”
Mia swallowed. “I’m okay.”
“I know you want to be.” Mark reached over and briefly covered her hand with his. “But I’m your father. Worrying about you is part of the job. It doesn’t turn off because you’re grown or because you have a complicated life outside this house. You’re still my daughter. You’re still concentrating so hard on everything else that you forget to protect the basic things like not opening the door to a stranger in the middle of the night.”

The words settled between them without anger. Just the solid, tired care of a man who had been woken by the sound of his child in possible danger and was still coming down from it.
“I’m sorry I scared you,” Mia said quietly.
“I know.” He squeezed her hand once and let go. “Get some sleep both of you. I’ll be awake for a while yet. The doors are locked. The police have the description. Nothing else is getting close to this house tonight.” He stood at the door he paused without turning around.
“Goodnight, baby girl.”
“Goodnight, Dad.”
The door closed softly behind him. Mia lay back against the pillows and stared at the dark ceiling. Beside her Sophia shifted but didn’t speak and everywhere was silent.