**Gavin’s POV**
"Who took your phone, Natalie? Who locked you away?"
The questions tore from my throat, raw and cracked with a chaotic storm of anger, desperation, and sheer relief. The rain continued to hammer violently against the porch behind her, but the entire world had shrunk down to the fragile girl standing on my threshold.
"It's a long story, my love..." she whispered, her voice trembling under the weight of the freezing rain and pure physical exhaustion.
Without waiting for an invitation, she took a shaky step past me into the house. Her soaked clothes left a dark trail of water across the polished marble foyer, but she barely seemed to notice. Her deep brown eyes scanned the dimly lit hallway with a lingering terror, as if she expected ghosts from her past to leap out from t
