Scarlett’s POV
I didn’t tell Miriam what I found in Elias’s bookshop.
Not yet.
There was something about the photograph, the number etched in the background, that sent a ripple through my spine. 7A. That couldn’t be a coincidence. Not after everything we found in the bunker. Not after what Cell 7A represented.
But if Elias was tied to that place, if he had any connection to the shadows I was running from, why hadn’t he exposed me? Why hadn’t he handed me over?
No. If I was going to find the truth, I had to move carefully.
So I smiled like nothing had changed.
I returned to the shop the next day with a basket of sweet rolls from the market and a scarf I’d knitted in the evenings when the silence got too loud. Elias looked surprised, even a little flustered, when I handed it to him.
