40. When The Door Wouldn’t Hold

I knew something was wrong the moment the house went quiet.

Not peaceful quiet, not night settling into walls.

This was the kind of silence that pressed against my ears, like the air itself was waiting.

Adrian had left barely an hour earlier. A late meeting he couldn’t postpone. I’d waved him off from the doorway, teasing him for promising to be back before midnight. He’d smiled, leaned down, and said, Lock the doors.

I had.

Every single one.

I was in the kitchen when I heard the faint scrape near the side entrance. Soft. Careful. Like someone was testing whether the house was asleep.

My first instinct wasn’t to panic.

It was disbelief.

This doesn’t happen to people like me, my mind tried to say.

Then the sound came again.

Closer.

My pulse jumped. I slowly set the glass I was holding down, listening. Footsteps. More than one.

I moved quietly toward the hallway, heart pounding so loudly I was sure it could be heard from outside. I didn’t shout. I didn’t run.

I remembered what Adrian once told me: Fear makes noise. Control buys time.

The alarm panel was near the study.

I was halfway there when the handle rattled.

Harder this time.

My breath caught.

This wasn’t a mistake.

This wasn’t a coincidence.

This was intentional.

I didn’t hesitate anymore.

I slammed my palm against the alarm.

The sound exploded through the house, piercing, relentless, alive. Lights snapped on. Sensors triggered. The quiet was shattered.

Shouting followed.

Not inside.

Outside.

Urgent. Angry. Rushed.

I ran to the study and locked myself in, hands shaking as I grabbed my phone. Adrian’s name filled the screen before the call even connected.

“Elara?” His voice sharpened instantly. “What’s wrong?”

“Someone tried to get into the house,” I said, forcing the words out evenly. “The alarm is on. They didn’t get in.”

“Stay where you are,” he said. No hesitation. No questions. “I’m coming.”

By the time security arrived, the intruders were gone. No faces. No confrontation. Just evidence of forced intent, scratched locks, a damaged gate, the unmistakable aftermath of a plan interrupted.

I sat on the edge of the couch, arms wrapped around myself, long after the house was declared safe.

That was when it hit me.

This wasn’t about intimidation anymore.

This was an escalation.

Adrian arrived twenty minutes later, coat forgotten, tie loose, eyes dark with something close to rage. He crossed the room in three strides and knelt in front of me, gripping my hands like he needed to feel proof.

“You’re safe,” he said. “You’re here.”

I nodded. Then, quietly, “She did this.”

He didn’t deny it.

“I should’ve ended this sooner,” he said.

“You couldn’t have known she’d go this far,” I replied.

But even as I said it, I saw the conflict flicker across his face.

Because part of him had known.

That night, sleep didn’t come easily.

I lay awake while Adrian sat beside me, silent, alert, every sense trained outward. And in that quiet, I understood something else.

Lydia wasn’t just attacking me.

She was trying to drag Adrian back into a version of himself that existed when chaos felt familiar.

In the days that followed, she reappeared as if nothing had happened.

At events, in meetings.

In shared spaces she had no business being in anymore.

Too close. Too casual. Too comfortable.

Watching her lean toward him, touch his arm lightly, smile as if history were permission made my stomach turn.

Adrian noticed.

He always did.

One evening, after she’d laughed at something he hadn’t said, after she’d stood just a second too close, he stepped away.

“Enough,” he said flatly.

She looked offended. “You’re acting like I did something wrong.”

He turned fully toward her then. “You crossed a line.”

Her eyes flicked briefly toward me.

Then she smiled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I did.

And so did he.

That night, Adrian stood beside me at the window again, the city glittering beneath us.

“She’s trying to remind me of who I used to be,” he said quietly.

“And who was that?” I asked.

“Someone who tolerated damage because it felt familiar.”

I looked at him. “And now?”

He reached for my hand, steady and deliberate. “Now I don’t.”

The attack hadn’t broken me.

But it had burned something away.

Any doubt.

Any hesitation.

Any illusion that I was merely passing through this life.

Lydia wanted me afraid.

Instead, she’d made me certain.

And certainly, I was learning, it was far more dangerous.