Sonia’s POV
The house did not feel like a home anymore.
It felt like a perimeter.
I woke the next morning with the lingering chill of last night still clinging to my skin. The memory of that movement in the garden, low, deliberate, refused to fade. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw it again. That subtle shift between the hedges. That pause. That terrible awareness of being observed.
Alexander had not left my side until dawn.
He had slept sitting upright against the headboard, one arm wrapped around me, one hand resting on the bed near his phone. Even in sleep, his body had stayed alert, coiled like a guard dog that refuses to fully stand down.
When I stirred, his eyes opened instantly.
“Did you sleep?” he asked quietly.
“A little.”
“You shouldn’t be tired.”
I almost laughed at t
