( Scene 2)

I don’t know how long I stood there—frozen between the weight of my past and the chill of the dream clinging to my skin—before a subtle sound snapped me back.

A soft tap.

Like someone lightly brushing a knuckle against the doorframe.

I stiffened.

“Mom?” I called out, though I already knew the sound wasn’t human. There was a strange… rhythm to it.

No answer.

The hallway behind me felt too long… too quiet… as though the air itself was holding its breath. I stepped out, hugging myself, scanning the shadows.

Everything looked normal.

Except—

The light at the end of the hall flickered. Once. Twice. Then stilled.

A breath caught in my throat.

Don’t do this, Sophie. You’re imagining things. You’re tired. Grief can twist light into shapes.

But even as I tried convincing myself, a pressure built in my chest—heavy, suffocating—as though someone unseen was standing far too close.

“Get it together,” I whispered, wiping my palms on my silk robe. “It’s just the new environment.”

Yet… the air felt familiar.

The same coldness from the nightmare.

I could still feel that figure’s stare… like it followed me even after waking.

I turned into the bathroom and splashed cold water onto my face, watching droplets trail down my cheeks like ghostly fingerprints.

As I looked into the mirror, the guilt came rushing back.

You should be looking for answers, not avoiding them.

Dad didn’t just collapse.

He left you something—a message, a warning—something hidden you’re too afraid to face.

My reflection looked back at me with tired, afraid eyes.

“I’m trying,” I whispered to her. “But I don’t know how to start.”

Another sound echoed.

Not a tap this time.

A whisper.

Soft. Barely audible. Like a breath slipping between walls.

My spine tingled.

I held my own breath, listening.

“…Sophie…”

I spun around so fast that the doorframe blurred.

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

But my pulse was a frantic drum in my ears, and the whisper—real or imagined—still coiled in my mind like a question mark carved from ice.

I turned off the bathroom light and stepped back into the hallway, keeping my back firmly against the wall so nothing could sneak up behind me. I moved slowly, one foot at a time, like approaching a wild animal.

When I reached the guest bedroom door, my fingers trembled on the handle.

I pushed it open.

The room was dark except for the faint glow from the street outside. I stepped in, eyes adjusting, scanning every corner—

And then I froze.

Because on the far wall…

Just above the nightstand drawer we hadn’t unpacked yet…

There was something I was sure hadn’t been there before.

A smudge.

Long. Vertical. Almost like—

A fingerprint.

Dragged across the surface.

My heart slammed against my ribs.

I moved closer, each step heavier than the last. When I reached out and touched it, the smear was dry… old… not fresh. But the shape was unmistakable.

A single, distinct fingerprint.

The same position.

The same direction.

The same place… as in my dream.

My legs wobbled.

My breath stuttered.

“No… no, no, no,” I whispered. “This isn’t real. It can’t be real.”

But the nightmare…

The whisper…

The pressure in the air…

This mark…

They all lined up like pieces of a puzzle I didn’t want to solve.

I backed away, shaking, until I bumped into something behind me—

A solid chest.

Warm.

Alive.

I gasped, air ripping out of me, and spun around.

“Hey—hey, it’s just me,” Lucian said softly, hands raised, dark eyes shadowed with concern. “Sophie, you’re trembling. What happened?”

I didn’t mean to, but the fear in me latched onto him instantly. I grabbed his shirt and pulled him closer like the room was collapsing and he was the only anchor left.

His arms wrapped around me—strong, grounding.

“Sophie,” he murmured against my hair, “talk to me.”

I swallowed hard, trying to steady my breathing, but the words came out in a broken whisper:

“Lucian… someone is in this house.”

His whole body tensed.

But his voice remained gentle. Controlled.

“Show me.”

I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to go near that mark again. But something in his tone—protective, firm, unshakeable—gave me enough courage to move.

I pulled him toward the wall and pointed.

“There,” I whispered. “That wasn’t there earlier. I swear.”

Lucian stepped closer, eyes narrowing with sharp focus. He reached out, touched the smear—and stiffened.

“Sophie,” he said slowly, “this isn’t dirt.”

My heart raced. “Then what is it?”

He lowered his voice.

“It’s soot.”

I inhaled sharply.

Soot.

Like from a burnt match.

Or a candle blown out in the dark.

Or a fire that never should’ve been lit.

Lucian turned his head to look at me.

Only this time his expression wasn’t just concern.

It was fear.

But not for himself.

For me.

“Sophie…” he whispered, “why would there be soot on a wall you haven’t even used yet?”

I opened my mouth.

But before I could speak—

The house creaked.

Loud.

Like something heavy shifted across the floor above us.

Lucian grabbed my hand.

And the look in his eyes told me one thing:

Whatever was happening…

It was only the beginning.

The air in the living room felt colder than it should’ve. Not icy… just wrong, like the kind of chill that slips between your ribs and sits there. The girls were upstairs getting ready for bed, their footsteps light, their voices soft. Lucian had stepped into the kitchen to rinse the cups. And I stood there, staring at the scrapbook Arian had left open on the coffee table.

A page I hadn’t seen before.

A page she shouldn’t have had.

My breath caught.

There, tucked between photos of my father teaching the girls how to braid rope, was something small—something thin—something that didn’t belong.

A note.

Folded neatly. Precisely. Intentional.

I didn’t recognize the handwriting.

It wasn’t Arian’s tidy blocks, or Arianna’s loopy swirls, or Aria’s playful scribbles.

No.

This handwriting was sharp.

Controlled.

An adult’s.

I reached for it slowly, as if touching it too fast would make it dissolve.

But before I could unfold it, I felt a presence behind me.

Lucian.

I didn’t have to turn to know. The air shifted the way it always did when he was close—dense, warm, watchful. His quietness wasn’t empty; it was loaded. Grounding. Protective. Too aware for comfort.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, voice low.

I swallowed. “This wasn’t here before.”

I opened the paper.

My heartbeat stuttered.

There were only six words written inside:

HE WASN’T SUPPOSED TO DIE.

Lucian stepped beside me, shoulders tense, jaw tightening the way it did when he was restraining something dark. He took the paper gently from my hand, eyes narrowing.

“Where did Arian say she found this?” he asked.

“She didn’t.” My voice cracked slightly. “I’m not even sure she knows it’s here.”

Lucian stared at the note like it was a threat—and maybe it was.

His brows pulled together, expression shifting into something unreadable, something sharp.

Then he said quietly, “This handwriting… I’ve seen it before.”

My stomach dropped.

“Where?”

He didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he lifted the scrapbook, scanning the pages like he expected more hidden messages. When he closed it, he set it down slowly, deliberately.

“I saw this handwriting,” he finally said, “on documents your father kept locked away. Papers he told me never to show you. Not yet.”

I stared at him, chest tightening, breath growing thin.

“What documents?”

He hesitated—a long, heavy second. Then another.

“Lucian,” I whispered. “Tell me.”

“They were financial records,” he said. “But not just his. Someone else’s. Someone who had influence over him. Someone who had power.”

A soft creak came from the stairs.

Both of us turned sharply.

Arian stood halfway down, clutching her stuffed rabbit, her face pale but her eyes too knowing, too awake.

“Mommy…” she said softly. “Someone was in my room.”

My blood froze.

Lucian moved first—swift, controlled, predatory.

“Where?”

Arian pointed upstairs with a trembling finger. “My closet. I heard it open. And when I looked… the door was closing. But no one came out.”

The room felt like it shrank around me, tightening like a fist.

Lucian crouched in front of her. “Did you see a face? A shadow?”

Arian shook her head. “No. But they left something.”

“What did they leave?” I whispered.

Arian reached into her pocket—slowly, fearfully—and held out something small.

A piece of folded paper.

Identical to the one in my hand.

Lucian took it, opened it, and swore under his breath—quiet but lethal.

YOU’RE NEXT.

My heartbeat slammed into my ribs.

Arian’s lip trembled. “Mommy… what does that mean?”

I pulled her into my arms, holding her as tightly as I dared.

Lucian stood, shoulders squared, eyes dark and dangerous.

“This isn’t random,” he said. “This is a message.”

He looked at me, jaw locked, voice like steel.

“And whoever left this in our home… knew exactly who they were threatening.”

Lucian moved with a calmness that wasn’t calm at all—more like the stillness before a storm breaks open and destroys everything in its path. He handed me the second note and walked toward the stairs, silent, controlled, but radiating a danger I had never seen in him before.

Not even when my father died.

Not even at the funeral.

This was different.

This was personal.

“Stay with her,” he said softly, without turning back. “Don’t move until I say.”

Arian buried her face into my neck, trembling. I could feel her little heartbeat racing. I stroked her hair, whispering something—comfort, reassurance, promises I wasn’t even sure I could keep.

Lucian took the stairs two at a time, his footsteps deadly quiet. I knew exactly what he was doing: checking every room, every shadow, every possible exit. For a moment, I imagined him finding someone—cornering them, pinning them against a wall, demanding answers with that cold fury threading through his veins right now.

God help whoever he found.

Because Lucian wasn’t just protective.

He was calculating.

Strategic.

Someone who didn’t react—he executed.

Arian clung tighter to me as we waited.

Minutes crawled by like hours.

Then—

Footsteps.

Slow. Controlled.

Lucian returned, phone in hand, jaw clenched.

“No one’s inside,” he said. “But someone was.”

His voice was rough, not with fear—Lucian didn’t fear—but with something far worse.

Certainty.

I tightened my hold on Arian. “What now?”

Lucian tapped his phone screen, then slipped it into his pocket.

“I called Cassian and Adrian,” he said. “Told them to come right now.”

Arian lifted her head. “Uncle Cassian too?”

“Yes, sweetheart,” Lucian said, kneeling beside us. “Both of them. You’re safe. I promise.”

She nodded, but her eyes were still glassy, her little hands clenched.

Then… she said something that made my blood turn to ice.

“Daddy… he left a smell.”

Lucian went completely still. “A smell?”

Arian nodded. “In my closet. I know that smell. I smelled it before. At the funeral.”

My breath caught. “At the funeral? When?”

Arian hesitated. “When you were talking to Aunt Vivian. I went to the chairs behind the tree… and someone was standing there. I thought he was crying, so I didn’t say anything. But he looked at me.”

She swallowed hard.

“And he smiled.”

Lucian’s entire expression changed.

Not fear.

Not anger.

Recognition.

He looked at me slowly, as if confirming a thought he didn’t want to speak out loud.

“Lucian,” I whispered, heart pounding. “Who do you think it was?”

He rubbed Arian’s back gently, reassuring her before answering me.

“A man your father knew.”

My stomach dropped.

“That’s impossible—dad never talked about anyone like—”

Lucian shook his head.

“He didn’t talk about him. He hid him.”

Arian shivered and crawled fully into my lap. I held her close, trying to steady my own breathing as Lucian continued.

“Your father once told me,” he said quietly, “that if something ever happened to him—something unexpected, something that didn’t make sense—there were only two people who would know why.”

“Who?” I asked, my pulse in my throat.

He met my eyes.

“One is already dead.”

The room tilted around me.

“And the other?” I whispered.

Lucian exhaled slowly, like he was releasing a secret he’d been holding for years.

“The other,” he said, voice barely above a murmur,

“is the man your daughter just described.”

Before I could speak, before I could even process what that meant—

The front door burst open.

Heavy footsteps.

A familiar voice barking, “Where is he? What the hell happened?”

Cassian.

And behind him, quieter but sharper—“Move. Let me see.”

Adrian.

Lucian stood, body shifting into a different kind of readiness.

“This,” he said quietly, “is only the beginning.”