I jolt awake with a violent gasp, lungs burning as if I’ve been underwater. My heart slams against my ribs, sweat soaking through the sheets, hands clenched so tight my fingers ache.
The room is still too dark. I sit up abruptly, breath uneven, sweat cooling on my skin as the last fragments of the nightmare peel away. No music. No blood. No her slipping through my hands.
Just the echo of it.
I reach for my phone immediately.
The screen flares to life, harsh in the darkness, and my pulse kicks as I unlock it. I scan for alerts, missed calls, messages, anything that shouldn’t be there.
Nothing. Her name sits pinned at the top of my messages.
Little Heaven.
I don’t open it.
Instead, I swipe to the security app.
The system loads instantly, the one I had installed the night after the car-park incident, while she slept unaware that men had already been watching the entrances to her building. Cameras upgraded. Access points monitored. Quiet. Legal enough to pass inspection. Invisible to anyone not looking for it.
I told myself it was temporary.
The blue dot appears.
Second floor. Apartment nine.
Stationary.
Alive.
The breath I let out is slow, controlled, like easing pressure off a trigger.
Good.
I tap through the feeds. Exterior first, the street outside her building sits empty beneath a flickering streetlight. No unfamiliar vehicles. No loitering figures. The view shifts smoothly to the entryway, then the stairwell, then the corridor outside her door.
Still.
Clear.
I lean back against the headboard, phone clenched in my hand as the image from the dream tries to claw its way back, her body jerking, blood spreading, my hands useless.
Never again.
I open a secure message thread.
Khai
Keep eyes on apartment nine tonight. Two men. Rotate every four hours. Same rules.
Read receipts flash almost instantly.
Acknowledged.
Already in position.
Of course they are.
She won’t see them. Won’t hear them. Won’t know that every entrance, every blind spot, every shadowed corner has been accounted for.
