The house felt different that morning, as if the walls themselves were holding their breath. Marco’s voice still lodged in my ears, a poison I could scrub but never fully remove. Yet with that poison had come something else—movement. Jonathan had not lunged blindly, but he had acted. He had reached, quietly, like a man who knew the value of precision. He had not told me everything, and that burned—but at least he was awake.
I did not trust the relief that warmed my chest. Relief felt like the kind of soft sheet you wrap around the wrists of a trapped animal before the hunter returns. Instead, I dressed with deliberate slowness: cream blouse, sensible shoes, hair pinned back so it could not tangle with panic. Liam was waiting in the small sitting room with coffee and a map I’d scribbled on
