Chapter 4

The smell of smoke woke her.

Evelyn' s eyes fluttered open. She was no longer on the bathroom floor. She was in her bed. For a disoriented moment, she thought she might have dreamed the entire nightmare. But the lingering ache in her abdomen and the acrid smell in the air told her it was real.

She sat up, her head spinning. The smoke was thicker now, pouring from under her bedroom door. Panic seized her. She scrambled out of bed, her legs unsteady. She threw open the door and was met with a wall of black smoke and the terrifying orange glow of flames. Her living room was on fire.

The packing boxes, filled with her books and memories, were burning. The fire was devouring her life, turning everything to ash. She choked, her lungs filling with the toxic air. She stumbled back, disoriented, her mind struggling to comprehend what was happening.

She remembered a fire extinguisher in the kitchen, but the path was blocked by a curtain of fire. Her eyes darted to the window. It was her only escape. She wrapped a blanket around her head and shoulders, took a deep breath, and shattered the glass with the base of a heavy lamp.

The cold night air was a shock to her system. She carefully climbed through the broken window, cutting her hands and legs on the jagged shards of glass. She landed hard on the grass outside, coughing and gasping for air. She looked up at her apartment, now a raging inferno. Everything was gone.

The wail of sirens grew closer. Firefighters and paramedics arrived. A kind paramedic wrapped her in a blanket and led her to an ambulance, cleaning and bandaging the cuts on her hands. The pain was distant, secondary to the shock.

She was taken to the hospital. As she sat on a gurney in a brightly lit emergency room, a familiar figure rushed in. It was Ethan.

"Evelyn! My God, are you alright?" he asked, his face a mask of concern. He reached out to touch her, but she flinched away.

"I'm fine," she said, her voice a hoarse whisper.

"I came as soon as I heard," he said, his eyes scanning her for injuries. "I was so worried. What happened?"

Before she could answer, his phone rang. He glanced at the screen, and his expression softened. "I have to take this," he said apologetically. "It's Tiffany. She gets scared when she's alone at night."

He stepped away to take the call, his voice dropping to a soothing murmur. "I'm here, sweetheart. No, I'm at the hospital... Yes, Evelyn's here. There was a fire at her apartment... No, no, she's fine. Don't worry, I'll be home as soon as I can. I love you too."

He hung up and turned back to Evelyn, the mask of concern slipping back into place. "I have to go. Tiffany needs me. But I'll have my driver wait and take you wherever you need to go."

And just like that, he was gone. He had been there for less than five minutes. He had shown a flicker of duty, of old habit, but his real concern, his heart, was elsewhere. He had left her, covered in soot and blood in a hospital, to comfort the woman who was afraid of the dark.

The profoundness of her isolation settled over her. She was truly alone.

A nurse came to change her bandages. As Evelyn sat there, numb, her phone, which had miraculously survived in her pocket, buzzed. It was a new message. From an unknown number.

Curiosity overriding her exhaustion, she opened it.

It was a video.

She pressed play. The video was shaky, filmed from a distance in the dark. It showed the outside of her apartment building. A figure, cloaked in shadows, was pouring gasoline around the base of the building, right below her window. The figure then lit a match and tossed it onto the accelerant. The flames erupted instantly.

The camera zoomed in on the figure's face as they turned to leave, illuminated for a brief second by the growing fire. It was one of Ethan's security guards. A man fiercely loyal to him.

Then, a text message appeared below the video.

He wanted to scare you. To make you realize you need him to protect you. But I think he went too far. This is what he does to people who defy him. Be careful, Evelyn.

The phone slipped from her numb fingers and clattered to the floor. The video wasn't from a stranger. It was from Tiffany.

The fire wasn't an accident. It was a message from Ethan. A brutal, terrifying act of control. And Tiffany, his new bride, had sent her the proof. Not to help her, but to torture her. To show her that Ethan was a monster, and that he belonged to Tiffany now. He was willing to destroy Evelyn to keep her, while Tiffany was content to watch her burn, orchestrating the cruelty from the sidelines.

A cold, hard clarity washed over Evelyn. This was not a love triangle. This was a war for survival. And she was losing.