KENDRA
The rain had stopped by midnight, but the air still felt heavy.
I should’ve been asleep, but my mind refused to rest. Every time I closed my eyes, Ethan’s smirk reappeared, his voice repeating those same venomous words.
"You’re just a placeholder. The board will chew you alive."
They looped endlessly, twisting with the memory of Pascal’s voice from earlier.
That contrast, the cruelty of one man and the guarded loyalty of another, kept me restless.
So I wandered.
Barefoot, I walked through the darkened hallway, the floor cool under my feet, the soft hum of the storm’s aftermath whispering through the open windows. The mansion felt different at night, larger, lonelier, like a place waiting for ghosts to fill it.
I turned a corner and stopped.
Pascal was there.
He was leaning
