The city had never looked so cold. Gray skies pressed low against the horizon, shrouding every building in a veil of fog that blurred edges and swallowed sound. Alessia pulled her coat tighter, the fabric doing little to fend off the chill creeping through her bones. The rain had started — soft at first, then steady — turning the cracked pavement beneath her boots into slick glass. Each step echoed a hollow rhythm in the near-empty street. She wasn’t walking toward safety; she was stepping deeper into a trap she could already feel tightening around her throat.
The message had come that morning. A single line, smeared in red ink on a crumpled note left where she could find it, where it would cut deepest:
You think you’ve won? You’re just beginning to lose.
The handwriting was unmistakabl
