“He wants you frightened,” he said quietly. “This is a threat.”
The note said that hiding would not save me forever, and that one day the police wouldn’t be there to shield me. A chill crept through me as I realized Corwin had entered the house without leaving any visible trace, likely using a copied key.
Backup arrived. Officers swept every corner of the home. Marcus returned to oversee the investigation. He explained that Corwin’s behavior had crossed from obsession into deliberate escalation. The kind of pattern that required immediate countermeasures.
“You are not facing this alone,” Marcus assured me. “We stay on him until he is in custody.”
Evening settled quietly, yet tension clung to the air. When the neighborhood experienced a brief power outage, my pulse jumped. The emergency lights blinked on moments later, but the darkness had already pierced my nerves.
Raina curled at my side, exhausted from fear she should never have had to feel. Lucan slept in his crib, unaware of how fiercely the world around him was shifting.