—N
My vision whites out. My body stills.
Then I scream.
Loud enough to shake the crawlspace walls.
Loud enough to wake the dead.
This isn’t a hunt anymore.
This is war.
And I will burn this city to ash to get her back.
The scream fades, but the rage doesn’t. It pulses behind my eyes like a drumbeat. I force my breath even, scan again—slower, methodical.
There has to be something.
A slip. A clue. Anything that tells me where he took her.
I kneel beside the pit.
The smell hits harder now—decay, wax, blood. The corpse is cradling something. I pry its arms apart, rage guiding me more than logic.
Another box.
Wooden. Locked.
I rip the lid off.
Inside?
Files.
Not of her.
Of me.
My breath stops.
I dig through the papers, heart pounding.
Employment history.
Surveillance shots of me—home, work—before I ever saw Raven.
A list of aliases I used in Eastern Europe.
Photos of women I followed before Raven.
He knew me.
He was watching me long before I touched her.
At the bottom—a letter.
Not typed.
