*******************************POV: Mack********************
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The walls in this house weren’t walls anymore.
They were expectations. Burdens. Whispers with teeth.
Every creak of the floorboard made my heart jump. Every flicker of light on the security monitors made my chest tighten. Sleep had become a stranger. Food tasted like paper. And the only thing I was sure of anymore was this:
I couldn’t lose Claire.
Not now. Not when everything else was already slipping.
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I sat in my office at the edge of dawn, elbows resting on the polished oak desk I hadn’t touched in days. The curtains were drawn, casting long, sleepy shadows across the floor. I could still smell her perfume on my sweater—Claire’s. Faint, but there. And it kept me anchored.
The media had been relentless since Aliana’s rescue. Every outlet was screaming my company’s name like it was a war crime. “Agyis Dynamics tied to secret basement.” “Half-brother of CEO implicated in criminal acts.” “Inside the empire of
