“Let me hear it.”
Panic slams into my chest.
“It was deleted.”
By who?
Not me.
Kai.
I realise it too late—the voicemail is gone.
Wiped.
Removed.
Noah sees my shock.
His eyes sharpen, suspicion slicing through his careful facade.
“Deleted,” he repeats slowly.
“You’re telling me it deleted itself?”
My breath trembles.
“I—maybe. I don’t know. The phone glitched, or?—”
Noah steps back, just barely, but the shift feels like the floor dropping out under me.
He studies me the way a surgeon studies an open body—no emotion, only assessment.
“You’re lying to me.”
I shake my head.
“No, I’m not?—”
“You are.”
His voice is flat.
Cold.
Deadly calm.
“And I will find out why.”
He turns from me, smooth and controlled, adjusting his cufflinks like he didn’t just threaten to peel my secrets out one by one.
“I’m going to the office,” he says without looking at me. “When I get back tonight, we’re going to talk properly.”
Fear squeezes my lungs.
He pauses at the doorway.
Doesn’t turn.
