EMMA
The silence in my apartment wasn’t peaceful; it was a physical weight, pressing against my chest until I felt like my ribs might snap. I had spent four hours staring at the wall, the darkness of the room broken only by the rhythmic flash of a blue neon sign from the bodega across the street.
I was at my limit. My career was a smoldering ruin, my bank account was a hollow zero, and the man I had once thought I loved was a predatory ghost haunting my every turn.
"You're still awake."
The voice came from the shadows by the door. Gabriel. He hadn't followed me—not in the way I’d forbidden. He hadn't chased my car. But when I’d reached my doorstep, shaking and half-broken, he had been there, leaning against the brickwork like he was part of the architecture itself. He had let me lead t
