~Narrator's~

“You owe me. Don’t act brand new now.”

Adele hisses the words into her cracked phone speaker as she paces the length of her dim hideout like a caged animal.

The room smells like old perfume and burnt nerves. The curtains stay drawn, though the afternoon sun claws through the edges. Her once-elegant heels lie abandoned near a shattered vase. She’s barefoot, pacing over broken glass like she can’t even feel the sting anymore.

The man on the other end of the line—an ex-ally, maybe a past flame, definitely a coward—says nothing for too long. That silence only adds to her rage.

“I have everything,” she says again, breathing...