Semua Bab The Crimson Letter: Bab 1 - Bab 10

The envelope sat like a drop of blood on the marble countertop.Sloane Maren stilled, fingers damp from rinsing her coffee mug, the morning steam still curling from ceramic. Her gaze locked on the sudden flare of red in an otherwise grayscale morning. The hum of the fridge, the soft patter of rain outside, the rustle of the city below, all of it faded as she stared..It didn’t belong there.Not in her shared Brooklyn apartment and certainly not in her life. Not anymore.It was a thick hand-pressed paper with weight and intention, sealed with wax the deep, bruised color of old wine. Her name was scrawled across the front in inky black, the lettering sharp, elegant, and unmistakably deliberate.Sloane Maren.No return address. No postmark. No stamp. Just silence wrapped in crimson.She approached it slowly, coffee forgotten. Her thumb brushed the wax seal, its edges chipped, imperfect, as if whoever sent it had pressed it with hurried hands. The faintest trace of something metallic curl

The car that met them at the airstrip was as much a relic as the island itself—an old black vintage, long and gleaming, with chrome details that caught what little light filtered through the fog. It waited at the edge of the runway like it had been there for years, patient and watchful. The driver, a man in his sixties with a thin frame and gloved hands, gave Sloane a silent nod before opening the back door. No words were spoken. None felt necessary. Sloane slid into the back seat, suitcase tucked against her legs. Theo followed, taking the opposite side with the same quiet efficiency. Between them stretched the kind of silence that had once meant comfort was now pressed too tightly against her ribs. She didn’t look at him, not directly, but she could feel the weight of his presence, the way he moved with purpose and stillness all at once, like a man who’d learned to weaponize calm. As the car eased up the winding path, Elandra Isle revealed itself in slow fragments. Pines lined the

The storm rolled in fully by morning, soaking the cliffs in grey and blurring the horizon until sky and sea became one indistinct veil. Sloane stood at her window, arms folded tight across her chest, watching the waves crash violently against the rocks below. The wind hit heavy against the glass, and the mansion groaned in answer, timbers shifting like old bones. Sleep had not come easily. She’d tossed beneath heavy sheets, the fire dying to embers, haunted by unfinished sentences and the weight of memory pressing hard on her chest. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw her old manuscript—page after page inked in her voice, her pain—slipping through someone else’s hands. When she emerged from her room, the halls were dim, lit only by antique fixtures that flickered weakly against the stone walls lining the way. The house felt different now, less dormant, more alert. As if waking up alongside her. She wandered without purpose, barefoot and quiet, following instinct more than direc

The envelope still laid on the desk like a heartbeat. Sloane stood above it, arms folded, eyes locked on the crimson wax seal that hadn’t cracked since the moment it appeared. The fire had burned low, shadows stretching long across the room. She’d returned from the garden cold and muddied, her thoughts tangled with Rhys’s words, with the soft hiss of his voice warning her against the letter without ever truly forbidding it. She hadn’t seen him again since. The envelope hadn’t moved. But it felt different now. Heavier somehow, as though time or the house had pressed something into its paper walls. Sloane’s fingers hovered over it, hesitant. She’d spent years chasing clarity. Years burying the bitter taste of betrayal, silencing her voice with whiskey and old drafts no one would read. But the presence of the letter made one thing impossible to ignore. Some part of her had never stopped waiting for this moment. With a slow breath, she broke the wax. The parchment inside was thick

He hadn’t meant for her to find the door.Theo stood at the edge of the hidden garden, rain threading down the back of his neck. The collar of his coat was soaked, but he hadn’t noticed the chill until now. His breath fogged faintly in the air, and the silence around him felt deeper here, heavier.She was inside.He’d felt it the moment she crossed the threshold. The atmosphere shifted, the way it used to when he opened a draft and saw her name written across a page he hadn’t meant to write. Something responded to Sloane. It always had.And now the garden was answering her.The door hadn’t opened for him in years.He hadn’t tried, not since the last time…after the fire, after the screams in the hall and the pages that bled ink without cause. He had shut the gate, nailed it shut himself in a storm, and walked away.But nothing in this place stayed buried.He stepped farther in, boots sinking slightly in the overgrown moss. The fountain stood in the center, just as he remembered, still