I see the sharp hitch in her chest. She doesn’t move, but she breaks. I see it in the way her head drops.
“Good girl,” I murmur.
Noah says something to her, trying to pull her back into his perfect, boring world. She lets him, because she’s a survivor. But she’s looking at the trees. She’s looking for me.
I straighten up, my mouth curved in a smile that would make a devil scream.
Noah thinks he has six days.
He doesn’t have until sunrise.
Scarlett
The island pretends to be gentle in the daylight.
That’s the first lie it tells me. The first fucking deception.
Morning pours itself over the resort in warm, honeyed light, turning everything gold and forgiving—white stone glowing like bone polished clean, water so blue it looks unreal, palm leaves casting lazy shadows that sway like nothing bad has ever happened beneath them. The air smells sweet this early, all citrus and salt and expensive flowers that bloom for tourists and die the moment they’re bored of.
It should feel peaceful.
It doesn’t. It feels like a shroud.
I wake already braced for impact, my body tight with the memory of hands that may or may not have been real—hands that felt like a promise and a threat all at once. My mind flickers between what I know and what I refuse to name. My skin feels too close to my bones, raw and buzzing. My heartbeat is wrong—too loud, too fast, like it’s trying to outrun something that’s already caught up and sunk its teeth in.
Kai.
The thought arrives uninvited, unannounced, slipping into me the way he always did—quiet, invasive, undeniable. Like a blade sliding between my ribs.
I don’t move.
I lie there listening to the villa breathe around me: the hum of the air conditioning, the distant rush of the ocean far below, the muted clink of glass somewhere down the hill where people are already drinking and pretending this place doesn’t rot when you dig your fingers into it. Pretending they aren’t standing on a goddamn graveyard.
I’m still staring at the ceiling when Noah speaks.
“Get dressed.”
No warmth. No greeting. No fucking pretence of affection.
I turn my head slowly.
He’s already showered, already immaculate—linen trousers, open-collared shirt, watch clasped snug against his wrist like time itself answers to him. He doesn’t look at me the way someone looks at a woman they love. He looks at me the way you look at something you’re assessing for damage. Like a car he’s about to trade in.
“We’re going out,” he adds. “I want you seen today.”
Something inside my chest tightens, a knot of pure dread.
“Seen where?” I ask, keeping my voice level, calm, careful. Every word with Noah is a negotiation I don’t remember agreeing to enter. Every sentence is a landmine.
He buttons his cuff with deliberate, agonising precision. Click. Click.
“There’s a market inland,” he says. “Not the tourist one. The old one. I want to show you something authentic.”
The word makes my stomach twist.
Authentic.
Nothing Noah touches ever is. He’s a plastic king in a glass castle.
