Page 145 of Reckless

It wouldn’t kill the investigation.

It wouldn’t make Calloway disappear.

But it would force the regulatory board to correct the error before moving forward.

Ten days.

Ghost had bought Unsilenced ten more days.

Ten days doesn’t sound like much.

But this morning, it feels like breathing room.

By lunchtime, I’m almost starting to believe we might actually survive this, almost.

When a knock lands softly against my office door, I call out, “Come in.”

Meagan, one of our administrative staff, steps inside holding a medium-sized cardboard parcel against her hip. “This just came for you.”

I frown. “I wasn’t expecting anything.”

She shrugs, setting it gently on the corner of my desk. “Courier dropped it off five minutes ago.”

“Thanks, hon.”

She smiles before slipping back into the hallway, quietly pulling the door closed behind her.

The office settles around me again.

Conversations drift faintly through the walls, and a phone rings somewhere down the corridor.

Someone laughs in reception.

Everything feels painfully… normal.

My eyes drop to the parcel.

It’s addressed to me.

Not ‘Unsilenced.’

Not ‘Attention: Executive Director.’

Just Sage Matthews.

My name sits in neat black block letters across the shipping label, with a blank return address, and a chill works its way slowly down my spine.

It’s been delivered here.

Not my apartment.

Whoever sent it knows where I work.

I’m willing to bet they know where I live too.

Somewhere beneath the fear, the late nights, the photographs, and the man inside my apartment, I’d accepted that they were watching me.

But seeing my name printed so neatly across the front of the parcel changes something.