I didn’t run.
I didn’t need to.
My heels clicked steadily against the cracked tile of the corridor, echoing like a war drum through the rotting bones of the villa slow, deliberate, each step a quiet declaration carved into the silence: I’m not afraid.
Because I could feel him.
Adrian.
The pressure in my chest was building, gathering behind my ribs like a storm swelling on the horizon, threatening to tear through skin and bone. My pulse thrummed at the base of my throat, steady and loud, pounding in a rhythm that was no longer mine.
Adrian.
Adrian.
Adrian.
My captors had never realized I was marking my path in subtle fragments. In every room they locked me in, I left something behind a floorboard loosened just enough to catch the light, a torn edge of upholstery sliced carefully al
