Chapter 7. Cracks in the Mask

The next morning, Harper didn’t leave her room.

Not out of fear. Not even to regroup.

She was waiting.

Waiting to see who would blink first.

Would the Ledger come to correct her?

Or would Knox?

Would he claw back control with silence, or detonate her door with a demand?

Neither came.

Just a note, slid under her door like an afterthought:

It’s not the betrayal that hurts. It’s the silence afterward.

No signature. No symbol. Just pain wrapped in philosophy.

Harper stared at it for a long moment. Then she folded the page in half. Then again. Then lit it in the sink and watched it burn until it was nothing but ash and memory.

He was unraveling.

Which meant she was getting closer than ever.

But what she hadn’t expected—what unnerved her more than the Ledger’s cold, systematic threats—was the emotion twisting quietly at the edges of her own strategy.

It didn’t feel like victory. It felt like e