The silence of the Malibu mansion was never truly quiet. It was a pressurized, expensive hum—the sound of high-end security systems, climate control, and the distant, rhythmic thud of the Pacific Ocean hitting the cliffs below. It was the sound of a gilded cage keeping the world out, or perhaps, keeping the prey in.
I sat on the edge of my bed, my fingers trembling as I clutched the small, battered locket I’d kept hidden for three years. It was a cheap piece of silver, tarnished at the edges, containing nothing but a scrap of a movie ticket from a night when we were just two teenagers hiding from the world in a darkened theater.
In the dim glow of my bedside lamp, the locket looked like a relic from a different life. A life before "The Angel," before the Reed merger, and before Marcus Re
