Chapter 26 was updated recently
The hilltop house had started to feel like a throne room built on borrowed time, every window a watchful eye, every shadow a potential traitor.
Alex woke before dawn , the city below still wrapped in pre-light hush, the kind of quiet that makes your heartbeat sound too loud. He slipped from bed without waking Ethan, bare feet silent on the cool hardwood, and padded to the kitchen to brew coffee strong enough to punch through the fog of last night's restless sleep. The espresso machine hissed like it was angry at the world too. When he opened the front door to grab the morning delivery, the package waited on the welcome mat like a venomous gift, plain brown paper, no label, no return address, just a single crimson seal pressed into wax, the same dripping crown he hadn't seen since he was sixteen and running for his life.
He carried it inside with two fingers, like it might bite.
