The message glowed on the phone screen like fire against her skin.
"Check your bedroom, Aria. I've already been there."
Signed with one word: Isabelle.
Aria's hands shook so badly she almost dropped the phone. For a moment, the penthouse felt too quiet. Too still. The kind of silence that wasn't peace but warning. Then, somewhere inside the apartment, she heard it, the slow, deliberate creak of a door closing.
Her breath caught in her throat.
She was not alone.
The bedroom was only twenty steps away, but it felt like a mile. Every instinct screamed for her to run, to leave everything behind and escape into the night. But if Isabelle was here, if she had touched her space, her bed, her world, then there was nowhere left to run. Isabelle had crossed a line.
And Aria knew one thing: a line crossed once would always be crossed again.
