London · Shoreditch
February 4, 2025 — 02:15
Eva’s phone lit up on the bedside table.
The glow of two in the morning cut through the darkness like a blade.
She turned over, unwilling to look. But the screen lit again. Once. Twice. Three times. The same unfamiliar number—insistent, almost as if it were knocking at the door.
She picked it up.
A single message. No name. No greeting.
“Claire’s apartment. Now. You’ll see the truth.”
Eva stared at the line for a long time.
Outside, the rain was still falling. She could hear it striking the air conditioner unit beyond the window—fine, rapid, relentless, like a warning whispered through the night.
She knew it was a trap.
She also knew she would go.
02:40
By the time the taxi stopped beneath Claire’s apartment building, the rain had th
