I turned my phone screen toward Julian with a shaking hand. “Someone just sent this. They’ve been watching this entire conversation somehow.”
He read the message twice, his jaw tightening with each pass, before his eyes lifted to scan the darkened street behind him, the shadows between the parked cars, the tree line at the edge of my father’s property.
“Get inside,” he said quietly. “All of you. Now.”
We didn’t argue. My father hurried us back into the study, locking the front door behind Julian as he followed us in, and for several long minutes nobody spoke, the only sound the distant tick of the grandfather clock and our own uneven breathing.
“I need to speak with Annie alone,” Julian said finally.
“Absolutely not,” my father said almost immediately.
“Dad.” I put a hand on his arm,
