Kai

I was sitting on my worn-out couch, feeling the weight of my exhaustion when my phone rang,

shattering the silence in my dingy apartment. I had been through a rough patch lately, struggling to

make ends meet, and that call felt like an ominous disturbance in my otherwise mundane life.

I reached for my phone and noticed the unfamiliar number on the screen. A quick, involuntary shiver ran

down my spine as I answered the call. "Hello?" I said, my voice quivering with a mix of curiosity and

trepidation.

A deep, somewhat menacing voice on the other end responded, "Molly, it's Kai."

Kai. The name sent a jolt of terror through me. Kai was the guy I had borrowed money from a few

months ago when I was desperate and drowning in debts. I hadn't heard from him since the loan, but

rumors about his dangerous reputation swirled in the shadows of our shared underworld. And it wasn't

just the loan that connected us; it was also the fact that I had tried to escape his cl