Chapter 78 Chapter seventy-eight
Lena’s POV
The phone vibrates before dawn, sharp and insistent against the quiet.
I’m already awake.
I’ve been awake for hours, staring at the ceiling, replaying voices that aren’t in the room. Imagining footsteps that never come. Counting the seconds between my own breaths like that might keep me anchored.
The burner phone lights up in my hand.
No name. No number.
Just a message.
You’re closer than you think.
My throat tightens.
I sit up slowly, the sheets sliding off my legs, my heart beginning that familiar, awful sprint. The room looks normal. Safe. Morning light leaking through the curtains, pale and harmless. My apartment smells faintly like detergent and last night’s tea.
Nothing about this should feel dangerous.
And yet.
I stare at the words until they blur.
They don’t threaten me. Not directly. There’s no command. No ultimatum. Just a hook, tossed neatly into my chest.
They want me curious.
The realization settles in cold and heavy. This isn’t about scaring me into silence. If it were, they’d be clearer. Louder. Crueler.
No. They want me moving.
They want me thinking.
They want me crossing lines.
I lock the phone and set it down, my fingers trembling as if they’ve touched something electric. For a long moment, I do nothing but breathe. In through my nose. Out through my mouth. Again. Again.
Sebastian’s voice echoes in my head, low and strained, from the elevator days ago.
Because both are true.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed.
The decision doesn’t arrive like a thunderbolt. It’s quieter than that. More dangerous.
It feels… inevitable.
The address isn’t hard to find.
It takes less than ten minutes of searching to pull up old articles, archived business reports, forgotten mentions in financial blogs that stopped updating years ago. The company’s name appears again and again, always paired with the same phrases.
Collapsed suddenly.
Aggressive acquisition.
Internal turmoil.
Leadership failure.
The headquarters address is listed at the bottom of one article, almost as an afterthought.
I write it down on a scrap of paper, my handwriting uneven.
I tell myself I’m just going to look.
I don’t tell Avery.
That omission sits in my chest like a weight as I pull on jeans, a sweater, flat shoes. I move carefully, my toe still tender, but the pain barely registers. Adrenaline does a good job of drowning everything else out.
Before I leave, I hesitate at the door, my hand resting on the knob.
This is stupid, a voice in my head whispers. Reckless. Exactly what Sebastian begged you not to do.
I think of his message from earlier in the week. Short. Controlled. Afraid in a way he tried to hide.
Please stop.
I open the door anyway.
The drive takes longer than I expect.
The city thins as I move farther out, buildings giving way to older structures, warehouses with peeling paint, streets that feel forgotten. My GPS voice grows more uncertain, recalculating twice as if even it doesn’t like where I’m headed.
When I finally turn onto the street, my stomach drops.
The building looms at the end of the block, gray and massive, its windows dark. The company logo is still faintly visible on the front—ghost letters where a sign used to be.
This place is dead.
I park across the street and sit there for a moment, gripping the steering wheel.
The air feels heavier here. Still. Like the kind of quiet that presses against your ears.
I step out of the car.
My footsteps sound too loud on the pavement. I slow unconsciously, scanning the street. There are a few other buildings nearby, all in similar states of neglect. No pedestrians. No open shops.
I tell myself that’s normal.
I cross the street.
Up close, the building looks worse. Cracks spider through the concrete. One of the front doors hangs slightly open, chained loosely as if someone gave up halfway through securing it.
A shiver runs through me.
This is insane.
I circle the building instead, staying outside. I’m not here to break in. I just want to see it. To feel it. To understand what was lost.
As I round the corner, the hairs on the back of my neck lift.
I stop.
The feeling is unmistakable.
I’m not alone.
I glance back the way I came, my heart thudding. For a second, I see nothing. Just empty street and shadow.
Then movement.
Someone steps back behind the edge of the building across from mine, just far enough to disappear.
My pulse spikes.
“Hello?” I call, my voice sounding thin.
No answer.
I take a step back toward my car, my breath shallow. The silence presses in again, thick and suffocating. I wait, counting seconds.
Nothing.
Maybe it’s nothing. A squatter. A security guard. Someone who doesn’t want to be seen.
Or maybe—
A figure emerges briefly from between two parked vans down the block. Tall. Indistinct. Watching.
Our eyes meet for half a heartbeat.
Then he turns and walks away.
Just like that.
No chase. No confrontation. Just the knowledge of being seen—and allowed to leave.
My legs shake as I retreat, every instinct screaming. I don’t run, but I don’t linger either. I get into my car, lock the doors, and sit there shaking, my heart pounding so hard it hurts.
They wanted me to come.
The realization lands with sickening clarity.
I drive away on autopilot, not stopping until I’m back in a familiar part of the city, surrounded by traffic and noise and life. Only then do my hands begin to steady.
I don’t know what I expected to find.
But I know this now:
This isn’t a story buried in the past.
It’s waiting.
Night falls slowly, dragging my nerves with it.
I keep the lights on in my apartment, every lamp glowing like a small shield. I jump at every sound—the elevator down the hall, the murmur of voices outside, the hum of my refrigerator kicking on.
I sit on the couch, the burner phone on the coffee table in front of me, my real phone beside it.
They stay silent.
That’s almost worse.
I’m staring at the burner when my real phone rings.
Sebastian’s name fills the screen.
My breath catches so sharply it feels like I’ve been punched.
For a second, I just stare.
This is the first time he’s called since everything shattered. No texts. No clipped work interactions. Nothing like this.
My thumb hovers over the answer button.
Then I swipe.
“Lena,” he says.
My name sounds wrong in his mouth now. Strained. Barely held together.
I don’t speak.
“Please,” he continues, his voice low. “Please stop.”
My chest tightens. There it is again. The same plea. The same fear threaded beneath control.
“Stop what?” I ask quietly.
A pause. I hear his breathing. Uneven. Like he’s standing still to keep from pacing.
“You’re getting too close,” he says. “This isn’t something you can fix.”
“You don’t know what I know,” I reply.
Another pause. Longer this time.
“I know enough,” he says. “And that’s why I’m asking you. Don’t do this.”
Something in me hardens.
All the confusion. The hurt. The fear. They fuse into something sharp and steady.
“You don’t get to ask that,” I say. “Not anymore.”
“Lena—”
“You pushed me away,” I interrupt, my voice trembling despite myself. “You broke me on purpose. You don’t get to keep deciding what I can handle.”
Silence stretches between us, heavy and loaded.
When he speaks again, his voice is rough. “I’m trying to keep you safe.”
“And I’m tired of being kept in the dark,” I say.
I end the call before he can respond.
My hands shake as I set the phone down.
The burner phone lights up immediately.
You see now.
I stare at it, my heart racing.
I pick up my real phone again, my decision clear and terrifying.
I open our message thread. My fingers hover over the keyboard for just a second.
Then I type.
Tell me the truth.