Raina's POV
The message sits on my screen like a command from a ghost.
Open the folder.
I stare at those words so long that the digital light from the phone begins to burn behind my eyes.
The apartment is silent, the kind of silence that should feel safe, but instead it feels like a warning wrapped in stillness.
I lower the phone slowly.
The black rose on the coffee table feels like it's staring back at me. Too dark against the beige marble. Too sharp against the soft yellow lamp that glows in the corner. The velvet black petals look unreal, like a symbol from a dream that shouldn't exist in the real world.
A black rose.
For death.
For obsession.
For the moment innocence ends.
The air in my living room smells faintly of the sandalwood candles I burned earlier, but somehow the scent feels artificial, like the room is trying too hard to cover something rotten.
I walk toward the study,
the room that once felt like sanctuary.
My bare foot click against the flooring — that soft, expensive sound, that controlled rhythm, but there is a tremor in my knees that does not belong in my usual grace.
Every step feels like I'm walking back into December.
The light in the study is dimmer than the living room, warm white, soft, wood-and-white aesthetic, the space I designed to be productive, focused, minimal.
Now it feels like an operating table.
The velvet box sits where I left it, small, black, closed, innocent-looking to anyone else. But I know what it means. My fingers curl slightly as I pass it.
Not touching, just acknowledging.
I sit down in my chair, the leather creaks softly beneath me. My laptop waits in front of me, lid half-open from earlier. The air around the device feels charged, like static before a storm.
My hands hover above the keys.
I inhale, deep, sharp, painful.
Then I pull the laptop open fully.
The screen wakes up immediately, like it's been waiting too.
The private folder icon is right there on the desktop, bottom right, where I placed it two years ago. My spine tingles. My breath feels like it's stuck somewhere behind my ribs.
My pulse is loud ,not fast, just loud, like someone pressing a heartbeat against my ears from the inside.
I click the icon.
The folder opens.
A list of files populates the screen, long, organized, archived, names, labels, dates, everything from that year, that stretch of time I swore I would never revisit.
My throat tightens.
I scroll.
Then I see it.
A new folder I never created.
DECEMBER 24.
The night that split my life into before and after.
I freeze.
My heart seems to drop into my stomach, heavy and sick.
My hand moves on its own, slow, mechanical, like my body betrayed my mind, like some instinct decided I must see it.
I click.
Inside is one file.
Just one.
A video.
My fingertip stutters on the trackpad, almost lifting, almost backing away, but then I touch it and the video loads.
The screen goes dark, shaky, camera tilted like someone filmed it from a pocket or hand.
Then I hear it.
My own voice.
Broken.
Young.
Raw.
"No — stop — don't — please —"
A gunshot.
Sharp.
Metallic.
Final.
I flinch so hard my hand flies to my mouth.
Glass breaks, someone screams, a chaos I can feel even though it's a recording, and then —
A voice.
Soft.
Even.
Southern drawl.
"Rai."
Everything in me freezes.
It's not memory now — it's proof.
He was there.
That night.
Ethan Hale was there.
The man in my clinic.
The billionaire.
The obsession.
The controlled voice.
He wasn't a new threat.
He was already part of my December.
My breath breaks out of me like something collapsed inside my chest. Tears sting my eyes, not hysterical ones, but thin hot lines that fall silently without permission.
I slam the laptop shut, the sound cracks through the study like a whip.
My body is shaking, not visibly, but inside, like my bones are vibrating.
I grip the edges of the desk to steady myself.
The room is too quiet, too still, too attentive.
I stand, slowly, legs numb, walk out of the study like I'm moving underwater, like the air is thick and every step requires strength I no longer have.
I reach the living room, the yellow lamp glows soft, warm, but now feels terrifyingly false, like a light in a horror movie pretending everything is normal before the scream.
I take one step toward the couch,
Knock.
My entire body goes rigid.
The sound is soft, not urgent, not pounding — just deliberate.
One knock.
Pause.
A second knock.
I turn toward the door.
My vision narrows, like the rest of the room dissolves into blur.
My hand rises to my mouth again, instinct.
My heart feels like it's suspended midair — not beating, just waiting.
I whisper, barely audible, breath fractured:
"He's here."