Elias had always known when a storm was coming. Not the kind with thunder and rain — the other kind. The one that crept beneath your ribs, quiet as a whisper, sharp as a blade.This morning carried that same weight.
His apartment felt smaller than usual, every surface too still. The light cut across the room in long, pale stripes, dust floating in the air like tiny, suspended secrets. He sat on the edge of the bed with one hand braced on his knee, the other gripping the edge of the sheet like an anchor.
Last night replayed in his head, not as a single memory but in staccato. The tremor in Mara's breath. The brush of her fingers on his jaw. How her pulse had thudded against his mouth when he leaned too close. It wasn't just desire that had burned through him then — it was the kind of hunger that scared him. Because it was real.
And real things… got people hurt.
He stood up too fast, the floor cold beneath his feet. Pacing was easier than sitting still. The silence clung to him like a second skin, thickening around the edges of the room until it felt less like quiet and more like a warning.
He reached the window and pulled the curtain back with two fingers. The city below stretched out like a restless animal — traffic veins glowing, people moving in quick, detached lines.And there it was.
A black sedan parked across the street.It had been there earlier too, when he first cracked his eyes open. At the time he'd brushed it off. Now, seeing it again, unmoved and humming quietly, the air around him shifted a notch tighter.
Elias wasn't a man who jumped at shadows. He was the shadow people jumped at. He'd learned early that fear kept you alive, but panic got you killed. So he didn't panic. He studied.
Tinted windows. Clean exterior. No plates he could catch from this angle. No one moving inside. Whoever they were, they wanted to be seen just enough to remind someone they were being watched.
The someone being Mara was a thought that slid in like a knife.
His phone sat on the nightstand, face down, still. Not even a ghost vibration from her. She always sent something in the morning. A message that wasn't really a message — some quiet word, a small thing that somehow carried the night before inside it.
Today? Nothing.
His thumb hovered above the screen. Calling her would be easy. Too easy. But if she was fine, he'd sound like exactly the thing she shouldn't want — the man who gets too close, too fast. If she wasn't fine…
He grabbed the jacket instead.
The fabric was still warm from last night. He slid it on, button by button, as if each small movement was a promise he hadn't said out loud. Watch strapped to his wrist. Keys. Wallet. A ghost of restraint.
The door clicked shut behind him with the soft finality of a gun being holstered.
The hallway smelled faintly of lemon polish and expensive paint. It wasn't really a home here — more like a shell built to keep people out. His steps echoed against the marble as he walked, steady but faster than usual. By the time the elevator doors slid open, he could feel his pulse drumming against his throat.
The lobby was bright and hollow. Too many lights. Too many people pretending to be alive in their routines. The black sedan was still there through the glass. It didn't move.
When he stepped out into the street, the sun hit his face like an interrogation lamp.
He got into his car without looking back. He didn't type in her address — it was already burned into him. He knew the turns, the length of each light, how long it took to get there if the traffic gods were kind and how long if they weren't.
Halfway through the drive, his fingers started tapping against the steering wheel — not a rhythm, just a pulse.
Elias tried to talk himself down.Maybe she was sleeping. Maybe she had her phone off. Maybe he was being reckless. But that feeling in his chest didn't believe a word of it.
The city began to change as he drove further from his neighborhood. The tall glass towers gave way to tighter streets, cracked sidewalks, buildings with real faces. Her part of the city felt alive in a way his didn't. It smelled like wet pavement, cheap perfume, and fresh bread from the bakery two blocks down from her street.
When her building finally came into view, the light had shifted again — that strange hour between gold and dusk where everything looks too honest.
Elias parked a street away.The brick façade of her building leaned into the sky like it had seen too much. A flickering hallway light bled through one of the second-floor windows, blinking in slow intervals like a heartbeat.
The gray car she'd mentioned once wasn't there. No man in a coat. But that didn't soothe him. The kind of danger that wanted to be found was rarely the one to worry about. It was the kind that vanished between breaths.
His jaw clenched as he scanned the street — corners, shadows, parked cars, reflections in windows. He could feel the air shift around him like a held breath.
He wanted to text her. He wanted to knock on her door and say nothing at all, just see her face and know she was still real.
Instead, he got out of the car.The air outside bit into his skin, sharp and cool, laced with the fading warmth of day. His footsteps were quiet as he crossed the street, drawn by something he couldn't name.
Elias stopped in front of her building, hands shoved in his pockets, head tilted slightly up toward the window he knew was hers. No movement. No flick of curtains.
But the pull was there.It sat just beneath his ribs — insistent, low, dangerous.
He didn't know yet about the envelope tucked under her mat, about the photo inside, or the quiet fear already crawling into her apartment.
All he knew was this silence wasn't just silence anymore .It was a storm waiting for him to walk through the door.
Elias pushed the door open to the stairwell instead of taking the elevator. The air inside was warmer, thicker — heavy with damp brick and the faint scent of detergent from someone's late laundry. His steps echoed up the narrow space, steady but weighted, each creak of the railing a quiet reminder that he wasn't supposed to be here. Not like this. Not without being asked.
He told himself he was just checking.He didn't believe himself.
The second floor landing greeted him with a soft flicker from a single hallway bulb. Its light stuttered like a heartbeat skipping a beat. Mara's door was at the far end, the old paint chipped at the corners. He'd memorized that door the first night she let him walk her home — how it looked too ordinary to hold someone like her.
Halfway down the hall, he slowed.The world had gone still. Even the usual hum of pipes in the walls was gone, like the building was holding its breath. His fingers flexed at his sides.
Then he saw it.
The envelope was gone.She'd already found it.
A prickle ran down his spine, sharp as cold water. He closed the remaining distance, stopping just outside her door. His hand hovered in the air — not quite knocking, not quite retreating. He could hear something faint through the wood. The soft drag of fabric against skin. A breath, unsteady and quiet.
Mara was inside. Awake.
And something about that quiet told him she wasn't alone with her thoughts. Something had already crept in.
Elias pressed his palm flat against the door, just for a second, as if he could anchor her through it. He hadn't meant to get this tangled. But here he was — heart pulling toward hers like gravity.
He drew in a breath, low and steady, then finally knocked.
Three soft raps. A sound that could mean a hundred different things.
The sound of his knuckles against the wood echoed down the empty hallway like a whisper that refused to die. Then nothing.
No footsteps. No voice. Just the faint hum of the flickering light above, skipping like a nervous pulse. Elias let his hand fall back to his side but didn't step away. His body stilled, tuned in to every detail — the creak of floorboards inside, the soft rasp of someone breathing through the hush.
She was there.Listening.
The air between them was too thick for words, threaded with everything they hadn't said the night before. The heat of almost. The danger of wanting.
A faint draft slid down the hallway, carrying the scent of wet pavement and her apartment — cinnamon soap, old wood, and something faintly floral. It wrapped around him, pulling him closer without moving at all.
His heart thudded once, heavy and certain.The city outside blurred into background noise — traffic, distant laughter, doors shutting on other lives. Here, there was only that door, and the space between breaths.
If she opened it, everything might change.If she didn't… something already had.
He stayed there, shoulders squared against the quiet, pulse thrumming low and steady, letting the weight of that unanswered knock sink its teeth in.