Sleep didn’t come easily that night.
It hovered at the edges of my thoughts, never settling, never committing. Every time I closed my eyes, the projection flared back into existence—my name at the center of a web I hadn’t agreed to enter, my body reduced to data, my future marked viable and exploitable.
Alexander didn’t sleep either.
I knew because his breathing never deepened. Because his arm remained around me, not possessive, not restrictive—just there, like a quiet question he was waiting for me to answer.
I stared at the ceiling and thought about Elena’s message.
Dinner tomorrow. Just the three of us.
There were too many lies folded into that sentence to count.
“You’re thinking too loudly,” Alexander murmured.
I turned my head slightly. “So are you.”
He exhaled a soft, humorl
