Emilia's painful discovery
The apartment was eerily quiet, the kind of silence that pressed in on the ears and made every small sound feel amplified. Rain clung stubbornly to the windows, dripping in uneven streams that traced slow, trembling paths down the glass. Streetlights outside blurred into smeared halos of gold and white, their reflections wavering like unstable thoughts. Emilia stood in the middle of the small living room, pacing back and forth, the floorboards cool beneath her bare feet.
In her hand, she clutched the flash drive Adrian had given her.
It was impossibly small for something that felt so heavy.
Every step she took seemed to echo inside her chest. Her pulse thudded loudly in her ears, as though her body were warning her, urging her to stop, to turn back, to leave
