My pulse stays steady, but it feels heavier. Like it’s dragging something up from the pit of my gut.
I check the timestamps. Whoever this is, they’ve been at it a while. A new message almost every day. And the most recent—
Who is that man you brought home? Is he your lover?
I stare at it.
That message came during dinner.
I feel something twist behind my ribs—tight and instinctive. Protective. Ugly.
“How long?” I ask, voice low.
Sabine looks away. “A couple weeks. Maybe more. It’s random. Not every day. I blocked the numbers, but they just use new ones. I figured it was some dumb prank, but then…”
Her voice thins. She pauses. Swallows.
“I started getting gifts.”
That makes me look at her sharper now. “Gifts?”
She nods, once. “Left on the porch.”
There’s a pause, like she’s lining it all up in her head, trying to make it sound less insane than it is.
“First it was flowers. Lavender. Wrapped with twine, all neat. Thought it was from a neighbor or something. Just… a nice gesture. But then a few days later, there was a dart. One of those little ones from a bar game. Just lying there.”
She breathes in through her nose.
“After that, a pair of gloves. Leather. Black. My size. Still had the tag on.”
She looks at me, jaw tight. “I threw them all out. Didn’t tell Mom. Didn’t want to freak her out over something that might’ve just been… nothing.”
It’s not nothing.
“Sabine,” I say carefully, keeping my tone level. “This isn’t something you keep to yourself.”
“I didn’t want Mom to worry.”
“You should’ve told me.”
Her shoulders tense, jaw already set like she’s bracing for a lecture.
“You weren’t here, Cass,” she snaps. “I wasn’t gonna call you in the middle of some classified op just to say I got creepy flowers on the porch.”
I exhale slowly. Bite down on the frustration building in my chest. She's not wrong. Not really. She’s always been the one holding things together. She didn’t want to seem weak. Didn’t want to bother me.
But still.
She shouldn’t have had to carry this alone.
Not this.
“Well,” I say, taking the phone again, “good that I’m back, then.”
I thumb through the messages once more. The texts are just vague enough to keep the sender safe, just personal enough to keep Sabine off-balance. Whoever’s behind this knows exactly what they’re doing.
The wording’s cool. Measured. Like they’re not trying to scare her.
