Chapter 2: Three Quiet Knocks
Brandon ripped the bracelet from my wrist and threw it across the room.
"There," he said.
"Problem solved."
Melissa laughed and refilled her champagne glass.
But something had already changed in the room.
Two of the guests near the door had gone very still.
They weren't laughing anymore.
One of them — a man I didn't recognize — had his phone pressed flat against his leg, screen down, like he was hiding a call he'd just made.
Brandon didn't notice.
He crouched in front of me and held the documents against my face.
"Last chance, Emily.
Sign them or I start on your fingers next."
I looked at him through the tears and the pain and I said the only thing I could think of.
"He already heard me, Brandon."
His smile flickered.
"What?"
"You took my phone.
You chained my ankle.
You planned everything."
I looked at the bracelet lying on the floor across the room.
"But you only needed two seconds."
Brandon stood up slowly.
Something behind his eyes shifted — not quite fear, not yet.
Just the first shadow of a thought he didn't want to finish.
Then every phone in the room went dark at the same time.
The music cut out.
And someone knocked on the front door.
Not loudly.
May you like
Just three slow, quiet knocks.
The kind that don't need to be loud.
