The safehouse had no windows.
That was the first thing the maid noticed when the silence began to feel too heavy.
At first, she had been grateful for it—the isolation, the sense of being cut off from the world that had suddenly turned against her. No eyes watching from outside, no passing shadows that might conceal danger. Just walls. Solid. Unmoving. Protective.
But as time passed, that same isolation began to shift into something else.
Something suffocating.
Because if no one could see in—
Then no one could see out either.
She sat exactly where Nathan had left her, her hands clasped tightly together in her lap, her body still trembling despite the hours that had passed. She had tried to calm herself, to follow his instructions, to believe in the certainty of his voice when he said
