"Eve, please. Please don't do this. Just call the police. Let them handle it."
I press the phone closer to my ear as the taxi navigates through evening traffic, the city a blur of lights outside the window. My hands won't stop shaking. "And tell them what? That I received a formal invitation from a stalker? They'll say it's not a threat, Lucy. You know they will."
"Then don't go! Just—stay home. Stay safe. We can figure this out another way."
But there is no other way. Not really. Rivers' investigation led nowhere—he found nothing, like my stalker is a ghost. The police don't care. And whoever N.H. is, he's been inside my apartment, inside my life, inside my head for weeks. Running hasn't helped. Hiding hasn't helped.
Maybe confrontation will.
"I have to know," I say quietly, my voice breaking. "I have to see who he is. What he wants."
"What if it's a trap? What if—Eve, what if he hurts you?"
The same fear has been gnawing at my insides since I opened that invitation, making it impossible to eat or sleep. But beneath it, stronger than logic or self-preservation, is a pull I can't explain. A need to finally face the shadow that's been consuming my life.
A need to stop running.
"I'm sending you the location," I tell her. "If you don't hear from me in two hours, call the police. Tell them everything."
"Eve—"
"I have to go, Lucy. I love you."
I end the call before she can protest further, before her fear can feed mine, and I lose my nerve completely. The taxi driver glances at me in the rearview mirror, and I force my expression into something calm, neutral. Just a woman going to a business meeting. Nothing unusual. Nothing terrifying.
The city streams past—familiar streets suddenly feeling alien, ominous. Every shadow could hide him. Every stranger on the sidewalk could be watching. I've lived in this paranoid state for so long that I barely remember what normalcy feels like.
But tonight, it ends. One way or another.
My phone buzzes with a text from Lucy: "I'm calling the police if I don't hear from you in exactly two hours. I mean it."
I type back a heart emoji, then silence my phone and slip it into my purse. My fingers brush against the black invitation card, and I pull it out, reading the elegant script again.
The heavy black cardstock feels expensive, official. The gold embossing catches the light—elegant lettering and a subtle symbol I don't recognize. A serpent, coiled in a circle. Strange choice for what I assumed was a personal invitation.
"Yours, N.H."
The possessive presumption of it should make me furious. Should send me running in the opposite direction. But instead, I feel that dark, treacherous curiosity blooming in my chest.
Who is he? How does he know so much about me?
The taxi pulls up in front of the Elysian Club, and my heart stutters. It looks exclusive, expensive, the kind of establishment where old money goes to avoid new money. The kind of place where real power resides, the kind that doesn't need to advertise itself.
The entrance is understated, elegant—just a brass plaque with that same serpent symbol from my invitation, and a doorman in immaculate livery.
I pay the driver with trembling hands and step out onto the sidewalk. This is it. My last chance to turn around, to choose safety over answers.
But I don't turn around. I can't. I walk forward, toward the doorman, toward the beautiful trap waiting inside.
Toward whatever fate I've been running from.
The maître d' greets me with a smile that's professional but knowing, as if he's been expecting me. Of course he has. N.H. planned this, down to the last detail.
"Miss Sinclair," he says, and the sound of my name in his mouth makes my skin prickle. "Please, follow me."
The club's interior is exactly what I expected—hushed luxury, all dark wood paneling and leather furniture, soft jazz floating through the air from a grand piano in the corner. Old men in expensive suits sit in wing-backed chairs, reading newspapers and smoking cigars.
But as I pass, I notice things. Small things. Several of the men wear rings with that serpent symbol. One woman has it embroidered subtly on her jacket lapel. The painting above the fireplace features a serpent woven into its classical scene, so subtle you'd miss it if you weren't looking.
