The air inside the master suite of Green Garden suddenly felt thin, as if the oxygen had been sucked out by the escalating tension. Julian Theodore Caldwell stood frozen, the phone in his hand feeling like a live coal ready to incinerate everything it touched. The screen was still lit, displaying a barrage of vitriolic comments from netizens attacking his character, labeling him a tyrant who had locked his "pretty canary" in a gilded cage.
"I told you, you weren't supposed to touch this," Julian's voice was low, vibrating with a volatile mix of suppressed rage and overflowing anxiety. He took a step forward, his towering shadow looming over Scarlett's fragile yet defiantly upright frame.
