Adrian’s phone buzzed against his thigh like a live wire.

He didn’t want to look. Not now. Not when Lila was still missing, when the image of her terrified face—her other face—haunted every blink. But instinct made him pull it out.

The screen glared up at him, a single message burning into his retinas:

"I have proof Lena killed Chloe. Meet me alone or Lila pays."

A grainy attachment loaded beneath it—a photo.

His breath stopped.

Chloe’s body, half-buried in leaves, her glassy eyes staring at nothing. And beside her, a pale hand smeared with blood, fingers curled around a knife.

A hand he knew.

Lena’s silver ring glinted in the dim light.

Adrian’s stomach turned to lead.

No.

It couldn’t be.

Lena had been with him the night Chloe disappeared. She’d been—

His mind stuttered.

Had she?

The memories blurred, shifted. He’d been drinking that night. Blacked out. Woken up with mud on his shoes and a headache like a bullet between his eyes.

And Lena had smiled at him over coffee, her voice syrup-sweet. "You were out cold, darling."

Now, this.

A trap? Probably.

But if there was even a chance this was real—if Lena had killed Chloe, if she had Lila now—

He was already moving.

The meet was set at the old dockyards, where the river swallowed sound and the shadows moved like living things. The air reeked of rust and rotting fish, the wooden planks groaning beneath Adrian’s boots as he stepped into the open.

No one here.

Just the whisper of the water, the distant hum of the city.

His hand hovered near the gun tucked into his waistband.

"Alone," the text had said.

He wasn’t stupid enough to obey.

A scrape of metal behind him.

Adrian spun—

The pipe came down hard.

Pain exploded across his temple, white-hot and blinding. He hit the ground, vision swimming.