(Hailey Miller POV)
The black van eased up to the warehouse like a shadow sliding into place. Its headlights dimmed as if some animal had folded its eyes closed after spotting prey. I pressed myself flat between two rusting dumpsters, the metal biting my palms, and felt my pulse throb so hard I could hear it echo against the corrugated walls. The air tasted of iron and salt and the particular bitter tang of fear—my fear, warm and alive inside me.
Liam’s recorded voice looped behind my skull, each sentence a weight I could not shrug off. Ethan had not been a willful villain but a man crushed by debts; Liam had not been a guardian but a gaoler who bound me in safety with invisible chains. His confession did not free me. It rewired the world into something sharper, edged with guilt and calc
