Chapter 245

SIENNA

The car stopped at the gate, and it didn’t open right away.

That was the first sign.

The delay was brief—seconds, maybe—but I felt it in my chest, the way you feel a misstep before your foot actually lands wrong. The guard at the gate looked at me through the tinted glass, his face unreadable, his posture a shade too formal. Then the gate slid open, smooth and silent, as if nothing had c