[Jake's POV]
For one second, nobody moved.
The lodge held its breath around us, old walls pressing close, the dead laptop smoking faintly on the desk, Sofia's photograph burning a hole against the inside of my jacket. Downstairs, the man who claimed he came from her waited in the dark like he owned the silence.
Darius stood beside the study door, gun raised, shoulders still.
I did not believe the messenger.
Not fully.
But disbelief did not remove the photograph. It did not erase Sofia's wrist in that restraint, or the calm fury in her eyes, or the handwriting on the back that had been designed to make me imagine every second she had spent in that chair.
"She sent you?" I called.
The man laughed softly from below. "Not directly."
"Then choose your next words carefully."
"I already did. That is why I am still alive."
Darius gave me a look that said, do not talk too long.
I ignored it, because talking was the only reason the man had not forced us into a blind stairwell yet.
