#Chapter 88: Exposed

Amelia It started with a knock on the door. Not mine, someone else's. It came from down the hall, maybe from across the building, but it landed in my chest like a warning shot. I froze, fingers hovering over my keyboard, the cursor blinking on a half-finished sentence. My hair was still damp from the shower, a towel haphazardly wrapped around me as I scrambled to finish replying to an email I no longer cared about. Then came the buzz. My phone lit up on the counter. One alert. Then another. A third. All from news apps. And then Emma’s text: Don’t look at the headlines. Too late. The photo loaded before my brain could catch up. It was grainy but unmistakable. My bare legs, his bare back, the unmistakable arch of his body wrapped around mine. My face was turned away, but even with the poor quality, the shape of my mouth, the fall of my hair, it was undeniably me. It wasn’t just an invasion. It was a weapon. An expertly timed detonation meant to rupture everything we'd been carefu