THIRTY-EIGHT

THIRTY-EIGHT

I locked the bathroom door out of habit.

Not that I didn’t trust Wesley’s security, or his patience, or even his strange version of gentleness. But some things didn’t belong outside steam-fogged mirrors and ceramic-tiled silence.

I sat on the edge of the bathtub, legs pulled close, the cold tile biting against my skin. My phone lit up in my hand, already unlocked. The inbox was still open.

Six emails. No subject lines.

Just the name. Marco.

I told myself not to read them again.

I did it anyway.

The first one was barely two lines.

You looked so beautiful in red. I still have the dress.

I didn’t remember ever leaving it behind. That meant he took it. Kept it.

My stomach twisted, but I clicked the next one.

I miss the way your voice changed when you were reading. You never noticed it, but I did. You sounded softer. Real.

The blood behind my ears pounded harder.

These weren’t threats. Not yet. Not like the first ones had been. They were slower now. More careful. Laced with something that sounded almost like regret.

But that made them worse, somehow.

I swiped to the third one. It was longer. I’d read it four times already, and it still made my hands shake.

I should’ve let you go, but you smiled like I was still your future. Davina was only a one-time thing. You and I are for life. You knew that. You still do.

Davina.

He had the nerve to say her name like it meant nothing. Like I hadn’t walked into that hotel room and seen the betrayal unfold in real time. The silk sheets. The guiltless smirk on his face. The way Davina never even flinched.

I’d never told Wesley what I saw in full detail. He probably didn’t want to know. It was easier for both of us that way.

But now, Marco was using her name like it was just a footnote.

And then came the line that hollowed out everything inside me:

I’ll always find you.

Not I’m sorry.

Not come home.

Just that. A promise with a blade tucked beneath it.

I lowered the phone slowly. My throat burned, but no tears came. I didn’t cry for him anymore. I couldn’t afford to.

I didn’t delete the emails.

I should have. It would’ve been easy. A swipe. A tap. Gone. But I didn’t.

Instead, I moved them to a hidden folder nested inside a chain of dummy folders—old travel itineraries, archived receipts, a fake journal backup. If someone looked, really looked, they’d find it.

But they’d have to be looking hard.

I stared at the locked door, knowing Wesley was still in his office downstairs. Probably still obsessing over blueprints and bullet trajectories and things that made him feel in control. He’d ask me what I wanted for breakfast like nothing had happened.

I couldn’t tell him.

Because if I did, he’d rip the estate apart again. He’d take my phone, lock me in a room, maybe go after Marco himself.

And somewhere in the back of my mind, a part of me whispered something even worse.

That I wanted to read them. That I needed to know why.

Maybe it was closure I never got. Maybe it was a craving for answers that still bled beneath the scars.

Or maybe—I couldn’t face what the emails actually meant.

That Marco hadn’t let go.

That he was still watching.

Still near.

I stood up too fast and had to grab the sink for balance. My reflection looked too pale, too hollow around the eyes. I splashed cold water on my face and held my breath.

This was a game. One I didn’t understand the rules to anymore.

But Marco did.

And now, I was playing blind.

Wesley was pacing.

Not in the measured, calculating way he usually moved. This was sharper. Harsher. Like each step was an answer he hadn’t found yet.

Two security experts sat with tablets open, muttering over blueprints. One of them kept gesturing toward the west wing windows. Another mentioned blind spots near the back staircase. Wesley shut them all down with a clipped wave.

“No blind spots. Not anymore,” he snapped, then pinched the bridge of his nose. “And I want every signal sweep rerun. I don’t care if it’s the third time.”

I stood near the edge of the room, arms crossed, pretending to watch the monitors. I wasn’t really seeing them.

I was watching him.

He hadn’t slept. There were shadows under his eyes that no amount of money or power could erase. His white shirt was half untucked, sleeves rolled to his forearms, veins sharp under skin that looked a little too tight across his knuckles. Every movement was precise. Controlled.

But he was unraveling. I could feel it.

I opened my mouth.

I was going to tell him. About the emails. About the photo.

But the words tangled and died in my throat. I closed my mouth again.

Twice.

The second time, he noticed.

“You’re quiet,” he said. He didn’t look at me when he said it—just clicked through another set of camera angles on his screen. But his voice dropped half an octave. Gentler.

“Just tired,” I lied.

He turned toward me. Eyes dark. Searching.

I waited for him to push. To ask. But he didn’t.

Instead, he reached toward the electric kettle in the corner, poured hot water into a mug, and dropped in a chamomile tea bag. He held it out without ceremony.

“Here.”

I stared at it for a second before taking it. The ceramic burned against my fingers in a way I welcomed.

He didn’t say anything else. Just sat down and went back to scrolling through the security feeds, as if the gesture hadn’t just hit me in the chest.

It was small. Simple.

But it made the guilt worse.

I held the cup close, letting the steam fog my vision. Somewhere in the haze of memory, another face surfaced. Marco’s. Laughing low after a stupid argument, his fingers brushing mine as he handed me a mug of Earl Grey, eyes soft with pretend remorse.

“You hate when I make it too strong,” he’d said.

I hated that I remembered that.

I hated that for one fractured second, that memory still hurt.

I closed my eyes and breathed in the scent of chamomile. Not Earl Grey. Not him.

But it didn’t matter.

Maybe I was still broken. Maybe some part of me had never really escaped that hotel suite or the woman in the red dress or the lies sewn into silk sheets. Maybe survival wasn't this clean, glorious rebirth they made it sound like.

Maybe it was just waking up different. Duller.

Wesley looked up from his screen then, eyes grazing over me. Not soft. Not hard. Just watching.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I said too quickly. “I just… need a minute.”

I left before he could say anything else. Before the weight in my chest cracked open and spilled everything I hadn’t said across his office floor.

The hallway felt colder than it had that morning.

And I knew, without needing to check my phone again, that the emails were still there. Waiting. Watching.

So was Marco.

Night had folded over the estate like velvet—quiet, suffocating. The kind of silence that made your ears ring.

I lay curled on top of the covers, phone glowing in my hand, thumb scrolling automatically. Mindlessly. There were no new emails. Nothing in my inbox, nothing in spam. No ghost-words, no confessions typed in that cold, familiar cadence.

But my body still felt braced for something. Like I was flinching before a blow that hadn’t landed yet.

I kept refreshing anyway.

Some part of me hoped I’d wake up and it would all be gone. That the messages had been some kind of glitch. A mistake. I’d been hacked. Or hallucinating. Anything that didn’t mean what I already knew deep down:

Marco was watching. And he was close.

My phone buzzed, sharp against my palm.

I flinched.

It wasn’t an email this time.

Just a social alert. A tag.

I frowned. I didn’t even have notifications turned on for this account. It was old. Private. Dormant.

But the tag was real. My name—my full name. Not a nickname. Not a codename. Just Catrina Morano, tied to an unfamiliar handle with a blank profile image and zero followers.

I clicked.

And froze.

The photo loaded instantly.

A wedding portrait.

But not our wedding. Not the courthouse photos Marco’s mother had printed and framed in marble. Not the veil I never wanted to wear or the dress I cried in while zipped into lace.

This photo was different. Digitally constructed. I could tell by the edges, the shadows, the eerie perfection. The face was mine—but smoother, colder. Like a version of me carved from ice. My lips were painted red. My hair curled the way he used to like it. The bouquet was fake. The background… wrong. Unplaceable.

But the worst part was the expression.

I was smiling.

Wide. Vacant. Like I wanted it. Like I belonged in that picture with whoever stood cropped just out of frame.

I scrolled down.

The caption read:

“Reunion soon.”

My fingers went numb.

For a second, I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move.

Then I fumbled, nearly dropping the phone as I locked the screen. My breath hitched in my throat, too loud in the stillness. My pulse galloped in my neck. My skin itched like I was being touched from the inside out.

This wasn’t just surveillance.

It was choreography.

Marco wasn’t watching.

He was reaching.

He wanted me to see this. Wanted to crawl under my skin and remind me that no matter where I ran, he had already mapped the road back.

The caption wasn’t just a threat.

It was a promise.

He’s daring me to run again, I realized, stomach turning. Because he already knows where I’ll land.

I stared at the screen in my hand like it might burn me. I didn’t scream. I didn’t cry.

I just lay there in the dark, heart beating loud in my ears, the twisted image of my own face smiling back at me behind my eyes.

And somewhere beyond the walls, behind cameras and shadows and codes—

Someone was waiting.

Watching.

And getting closer.

I sat in silence, wedding photo still etched in my vision, and finally understood—

The game never ended.

It only changed shape.