The sun didn’t rise like it used to. Not for me.
I stayed curled beside Adrian most mornings, tracing the edge of his heartbeat with my fingers, pretending I couldn’t feel the anxiety in his chest. Pretending my sister wasn’t haunting the shadows of our home. Pretending her last message wasn’t still burned into the corners of my mind.
I want him.
She didn’t mean Adrian.
She meant the child inside me.
I couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t dream. I lived between fear and resolve. Every heartbeat, every breath was a silent prayer that she wouldn’t find a way in again.
The guards changed shifts with sharper focus. Vanessa moved into the guest room downstairs. Adrian never left the house without three men trailing behind him. I started locking the nursery twice before bed, even though no one slept in it yet.
And then, just as we started thinking the worst might be over, something new arrived.
An envelope.
Taped to the balcony door.
No guards saw who placed it.
No one heard a sound.
It was beige and t
