Chapter 16 – "Echoes of the Past"
The next morning, Ava fakes sleep until Dominic leaves. She doesn't eat. Doesn't cry. Her focus is razor-sharp.
She logs into the restricted laptop and uses a backdoor she learned in college—something Dominic's tech team didn't account for. After rerouting her connection, she sends an encrypted message to a contact she hasn't spoken to in years.
Noah Lin.
The name feels like a memory she shouldn't touch.
Noah was once her best friend. More than that, maybe, if life had gone differently. But after her mother fell ill and she disappeared into Dominic's shadow, she cut everyone off—including him.
She wasn't protecting herself. She was protecting her guilt.
She doesn't expect a reply.
But one comes minutes later.
> "Is it really you?"
She responds with only one word:
> "Help."
An hour later, a burner phone is slipped under her apartment door. No one knocks. No one is seen. She answers it with shaking hands.
> "Ava?" It's his voice. Rougher, older, but unmistakable. "Are you in danger?"
> "Yes," she whispers. "But not the way you think."
They arrange to meet the next evening—carefully, off Dominic's radar.
That night, she dreams of the day she last saw Noah. He was begging her not to marry Dominic, not to disappear.
And now, he's risking his own life just to reach her.
But when she wakes, there's something wrong.
One of Dominic's guards is missing.
And in his place is a man Ava doesn't recognize—someone with a serpent tattoo on his neck.
She locks the door. Her hands tremble as she holds the burner phone.
> What if Dominic's enemies have already found her?
And worse—
> What if Noah walking back into her life has just made him their next target?
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