Evelyn's POV
Benjamin changed his mind before we reached the door.
"Not tonight," he said. "We are not walking into something we do not understand in the dark."
I wanted to argue…the words were already building in my chest, but I'm no longer a baby who would let out words without having a rethink. I had grown to learn when pushing made things worse, and the look on Benjamin's face told me this was not stubbornness. It was caution from a man who had spent fifteen years searching for me and was not about to lose me to a stranger's message in the night.
I sat back down.
The message stayed on Emmanuel's phone. He took a screenshot of it, forwarded it to two people I did not know, then set the device face-down on the table.
Nobody slept well that night. Aunt Mirabel showed me her guest ro
