The air was suffocating.
Aria stared at the wall in horror, her own face staring back from nearly every photograph. Most were old—some she didn't even remember being taken. School dances. Shopping trips. Her first job. Smiling, unaware.
But others… were recent. From weeks ago.
One outside her apartment.
Another from the café where she met with her lawyer.
"How did she get these?" Aria whispered. "Who's been watching me?"
Xander stepped closer, scanning the wall. His jaw clenched.
"This wasn't Amara," he said finally.
Aria turned. "What?"
"She was smart, yeah, but not like this. Not this calculated. Whoever made this wall has been tracking you for a long time. And they knew exactly where to hide it."
"You think she's being protected? Or… hunted?"
He didn't answer.
Instead, he pulled a folded paper from one of the corners of the board. It was stained. Old. But the handwriting was unmistakable—Amara's.
"He said I was dangerous. That if I didn't disappear, he'd disappear me himself."
Beneath it, a name.
One Aria hadn't seen in years.
Her father's lawyer.
Mr. Dalton.