Chapter 109: Under the surface
The sun crawled low across the windows, throwing a golden warmth on the floorboards, but the heat did not dissipate much of the tension that clung to the villa like stale air, almost suffocating us with each breathe we took. I sat on the edge of the bed, still in my robe, fingers tightening around the cup of coffee I hadn’t even bothered to touch, thatCaspian had made for me.
We hardly spoke as we went through morning routine. It was the sort of quiet not bred of rage, but bred of fear—thick and shared and deafeningly silent.
Caspian still stood by the window, his face sunlit. He had not slept much, I could see. The crease between his eyebrows had deepened, and a shadow lingered at the bottom of his eyes. He looked really tired and his eye bags were swollen.
He spoke to me, his tone even but edged. "There was no one on the camera footage."
I looked up. "None of the feeds had anything in them?"
"None." He raked his hand through his hair. "Either we have ghosts, or whoever this guy is familiar with our blind spots."
The thought sent a shiver through me.
"Do you think it is him?" I asked, the unsaid name suspended between us like a thread.
"Nathaniel?" Caspian's jaw was clenched. "I wouldn't be surprised. But this is. deliberate. Familiar, but not sloppy. If he was trying to unnerve you, this is how he'd do it."
I hated that he was right. I hated my body's reaction to the notion—tensing with the unpleasant bite of realization. Nathaniel had extensive practice in the science of psychological warfare. Always knew exactly how to creep forward close enough for my reality to break.
"But he has been gone for so long," I breathed. "Why now, why the sudden peak of interest, what’s he trying to achieve with all this?"
Caspian edged closer, sinking down into a crouch so that we were eye to eye. "Because he saw us at the masquerade. Or heard about it. You understand how things like that are always gossiped about."
My lips parted to respond—but a firm rap came on the door and both our heads whipped around.
We were frozen in the place we stood.
Caspian rose slowly, waving for me to stay put. I heard the door creak open, his deep voice talking to someone briefly, and then the scratching of paper.
When he returned, his face was pale.
"What is it?" I demanded, with my heart racing wildly.
He handed me a new envelope. Simple. Cream. Sealed with no address on it, nothing for us to trace the sender of the package.
Inside was one Polaroid picture.
It blew the villa to smithereens. Our villa. From distance—over the lawn, perhaps from the forest.
The horror was the time the clock showed.
2:12 AM.
About the time I'd awoken the night before, having the sensation of being observed.
I looked up at Caspian. "Someone was there. Observing. While we slept."
He nodded once. "Yes."
We held eyes, unspoken fear creasing the lines between us. It wasn't tension anymore. It was desecration.
I recalled all the nights that I'd left windows just ajar for a breeze. The times I'd walked barefoot out into the back yard with a glass of wine, bulletproof.
The shower I took last week, music playing, curtain thrown open wide.
I was vulnerable suddenly in my own body.
"I want to get out," I whispered.
Caspian didn't reply at once. He just took the photograph from my hand and examined it, his own face set in a hard line.
When he did reply, his voice was low. "Leaving won't solve anything. If we leave now, we're just fulfilling their wishes. And we have no idea whether we'd even be safer somewhere else."
"But living here—" I was panting. "I can't sleep with the knowledge that there's someone behind the wall."
Caspian encircled my hand with his. "Then we fight this. Together. No more thinking it's a phase or a joke. We have professional surveillance. Detectives. I'll owe favors to whoever I can speak to."
"And if that doesn't work?" I pushed.
His grip was intense. "Then I'll do whatever I must. I'll keep you safe, Lily. I swear it."
His words hung between us with greater weight than comfort. Because defending me meant revealing. Uncovering the past. Bringing Nathaniel—or whoever was behind this—into the light.
And there would be no turning back.
The rest of the day melted into tension and strategizing. Caspian called. I reviewed security measures. We even discussed getting a dog.
But in the evening, the villa was even more lively in its quietness. Each creak of the floor, each flutter of the wind echoed louder. As if the house was announcing that something was coming.
11:57 PM, and as I was about to turn off the light, my phone rang again.
Unknown number.
I answered with a nervous gasp. "Hello?"
Silence.
Then a breath.
One soft, slow breath. Close. Intimate. As if the person had stood right beside the receiver.
"Who is this?" I snapped, trying to sound stern.
No answer. Only the echo of someone having been there. Listening.
Then—click.
Disconnected.
I glared at the screen, heart pounding so hard it drowned out everything else. My face on the black screen was white and scared.
Caspian sprang out of bed immediately. "Who was it?"
"Same number," I panted. "No voice. Breathing."
He sprang from bed and stormed towards the door. "That's it. Top-of-the-line everything. I don't care how much it costs."
But as he padded down the hall, shouting orders into a phone at some poor soul, I froze, phone still grasped in my hand.
Because something about that breath—gentle, too close—sounded familiar.
Too familiar.
Like a man who'd once breathed my name against my hair as he brushed it back from behind my ear.
Like a man who'd once shared a bed, a future, a lie.