The message stayed burned into Noah's mind long after the phone screen went dark.
Ask him about the ring.
He lay there, staring at the ceiling, listening to the mansion breathe around him—the distant hum of generators, the soft click of security doors resetting, the quiet footsteps of night staff moving through corridors they knew by heart. This place never truly slept. It only waited.
Noah pressed the heel of his hand against his chest, trying to steady his breathing.
His mother's ring.
He hadn't thought about it in years—not consciously. It had been a simple thing. Gold, thin band, nothing extravagant. She wore it on a chain around her neck after the divorce, tucked beneath her clothes, like it was something too private for the world to see. Noah remembered how she used to touch it when she was anxious, thumb brushing over the worn metal as if reassurance lived there.
He never stopped wearing his.
That part unsettled him more than the rest.
