By the time the second email came in, my coffee had gone cold.
It sat on the edge of my desk, a ring of dull brown marking where I’d set it down too hard. The office was all hum and white noise—printers grinding, phones trilling every few seconds, Harper somewhere behind me laughing too loudly at something on her screen. Normal. Safe. Bland.
My inbox did not match the vibe.
Subject: SECOND NOTICE – EMOTIONAL OFFENSE
I stared at the words, my fingers hovering over the trackpad. I’d deleted the first one yesterday. Spam, I’d told myself. A bot. Someone’s weird art project.
This one had my full name in the subject line.
“Ava, you finish the Q3 deck?” Harper’s voice cut through the cotton in my ears.
“Almost,” I lied. My throat felt tight. “Give me ten.”
She made some dramatic groan in response, chair wheels squeaking as she rolled away. I clicked the email before I could talk myself out of it.
Dear Ava Cross,
We have reviewed your case.
It is our judgment that you are guilty of the following emotional crimes: pattern of romantic negligence, avoidance of accountability, abandonment of a vulnerable partner (see: Ethan Maddox, case file EM-3471).
My chest clamped around his name.
There was more. Block text, clean font, like a legal notice. Screenshots: my old Instagram, a pixelated photo of me and Ethan at the summer festival last year, my smile wide and oblivious. A link to a forum I’d never seen before, full of usernames and rage.
The last line made my skin crawl.
We existed for him. Now we exist for you.
I jerked my laptop closed so hard the lid clicked.
“Whoa.” Harper’s chair creaked. I hadn’t even heard her roll back. “You okay? You look like you just saw your student loan balance.”
“I’m fine.” The words came out too fast. My palms were damp. “Just… glitchy file. I’ll restart.”
She spun until she was facing me, eyebrows raised, glossy hair swung over one shoulder. “Glitchy file, my ass. You’re white as the copy paper. You sure you don’t want to tell your loving, nonjudgmental work wife what’s up?”
The almost-hysterical urge to laugh bubbled up. Nonjudgmental. If only she could read my inbox.
“I said I’m fine.” I forced my shoulders to relax. “And you’re extremely judgmental. It’s your brand.”
“Okay, rude but accurate.” She grinned. “I’ll give you space. Ten minutes, Cross. Then I’m coming back with caffeine and nosy questions.”
She rolled away again. I stared at the closed laptop like something might leak out of it.
Case file. EM-3471.
I knew there were corners of the internet that had turned Ethan into a story. I’d seen the hashtags after everything exploded—#JusticeForEthan, #EmotionalAbuseIsAbuse. I’d read a few comments before I stopped. Before I realized I couldn’t argue with strangers who’d already decided I was a villain.
But this was different. Structured. Organized. Like someone had turned a Reddit dogpile into… a system.
My phone buzzed face-down on the desk. For one pulsing second I imagined it was Ethan, even though I knew better. He was in a clinic an hour away, piecing his brain back together. Ethan didn’t text me anymore. That was the point. That was the deal.
Unknown number.
I swallowed and flipped it over.
You should have stayed.
A link followed, the same URL as in the email. A second message appeared before I could blink.
We see you.
A picture loaded beneath it. Taken from street level, slightly angled up. Me, this morning, standing outside my apartment building, key in the lock. Same scarf. Same messy knot of hair. The timestamp read 7:42 a.m.
The office air went thick, pressing in on my ribs.
I stood so fast my chair rolled back and banged into the partition. A couple of heads turned. I pretended not to notice.
Bathroom, I signed at Harper across the room, hand flat, cutting sideways. She made an okay circle back without missing a beat in her phone call.
In the stall, I slid the lock and braced my hands on the cold metal partition. My breath shuddered in and out, too loud in the tiled room.
This is what you get, a small, mean voice in my head whispered.
I squeezed my eyes shut until black spots danced. I’d spent months in a kind of low-grade numbness, moving through my days on autopilot—wake up, go to work, avoid conversations about him, pretend the ground hadn’t opened up the night I heard what he’d done. I’d thought guilt would be heavy forever, but it had flattened into something else: routine. A new normal built on careful nothing.
The messages cracked that open in seconds.
I should go to the police, I thought. They’d roll their eyes. They always did when the word online came up. Threats didn’t count until there was a body.
I unlocked the stall and walked to the sink. The fluorescents buzzed overhead. My reflection looked back at me—brown skin a shade too pale, dark circles under my eyes, lipstick worn at the edges. Someone who did not have time for a breakdown before the eleven a.m. client meeting.
“Get it together,” I told the mirror.
The door opened. “Talking to yourself now?” Harper leaned against the frame, coffee in hand. “We’ve officially crossed into worrying.”
“Boundaries,” I muttered, but there was no heat behind it.
She sobered when she really looked at me. “Okay. Seriously. What happened? You look like when I accidentally liked my ex’s vacation pic from 2018, but, like, times a hundred.”
My throat worked. I opened my mouth to say it’s nothing again—and for some reason, what came out was, “Someone sent me a photo of my apartment.”
Her face changed, the easy humor snapping off like a light. “What?”
“In my email. On my phone. Some… group. They know about Ethan.” Saying his name felt like stepping barefoot on glass. “They know where I live.”
She swore under her breath. “Show me.”
We stood shoulder to shoulder as I pulled up the messages. Her body warmth grounded me as her eyes scanned the screen.
“‘Emotional crimes,’” she read. “Jesus. That’s dramatic even for the internet.” She scrolled. “‘We existed for him. Now we exist for you.’ That’s not just a troll, that’s… organized psycho vibes.”
“Harper,” I whispered, “they were outside my building.”
She put a hand on my arm, fingers pressing just enough to keep me there. “Okay. Breathe. We’re going to the police.”
“They won’t—”
“Then we file a report and make them put it in a system, so if anything else happens they’ve got a paper trail,” she cut in. “My cousin had a stalker, remember? They were useless until he broke into her car. We’re not waiting for a car break-in.”
“I can’t… I have the client call, and—”
“I will run interference,” she said, more steel in her voice than I was used to. “We go at lunch. Non-negotiable.”
Her certainty steadied me, enough to nod.
But the image of my own door, my own key, hovered behind my eyes all the way back to my desk.
The cop at the front desk didn’t even bother to hide the boredom.
He squinted at the printouts—Harper had insisted we hit the copier—and then at my phone. “So no direct threat of violence.”
“He sent her a picture of her apartment,” Harper said. “And Ethan’s name. This is connected to all that dark-web crap. You saw the articles.”
He shrugged, shoulders stretching his too-tight uniform. “Ma’am, people say crazy stuff online all the time. You know how many of these we get? If we opened a case on every weird email—”
“They know where I live,” I said quietly. “They know my schedule.”
He softened a fraction. Pity, not concern. “We can take an incident report. If anything physical happens, you call nine-one-one. Until then—change your passwords, maybe take a break from social media?”
Social media. As if hashtags had put Ethan in the hospital.
Harper looked like she wanted to climb over the counter and throttle him. “So if someone breaks her windows, then you’ll care.”
“Ma’am—”
“It’s fine,” I cut in, because my lungs were starting to feel too small again. “I get it. I can fill out the form.”
He slid a clipboard toward me. The pen was attached with a frayed piece of string. I wrote my name, my address, tried to condense the last twenty-four hours into neat boxes and checkmarks.
When we stepped back out into the afternoon light, the chill air hit my face like a slap.
“I hate this city,” Harper muttered. “No offense, city. You’re beautiful, but your institutions suck.”
I hugged my coat tighter around myself. “It’s not their fault.” The words tasted like ash. “Nothing really happened.”
“Nothing happening yet is not the same as nothing,” she snapped, then checked herself. “Look, I’ll stay over tonight if you want. We can binge terrible reality shows. I’ll bring snacks and my stun gun.”
“You own a stun gun?”
“Don’t change the subject.”
I hesitated. The idea of her on my couch, another breathing body in my space, should have been comforting. Instead, a weird claustrophobia rose up. “Let me see how I feel later, okay?”
She exhaled through her nose, not happy but not pushing. “Fine. But you answer your phone. That is also non-negotiable.”
I nodded and watched her peel off toward the subway. My building was only a fifteen-minute walk. I told myself the movement would help, that the fresh air would clear my head.
Halfway home, my phone buzzed again.
Did you like our visit to the police?
I stopped dead on the sidewalk.
Cars swished past. People flowed around me, annoyed murmurs brushing my ears. I looked up, heart thudding, scanning the opposite sidewalk, the parked cars, upper windows.
No one was looking at me.
Another text.
They didn’t listen to him either.
I broke into a run.
By the time my apartment door shut behind me, my chest ached. I slid the deadbolt, then did it again, like reinforcement could come from repetition.
My place was small but usually cozy—second-floor walk-up, soft gray sofa, mismatched plants fighting for light in the single front window. Today it felt like a diorama someone could peer into from all sides.
I dropped my bag, went straight to the kitchen, and grabbed the knife block. My fingers trembled as I pulled the longest one free.
“This is stupid,” I whispered to the empty room. “No one is here.”
Still, I did a circuit: bedroom, closet, bathroom, under the bed—a grown woman with a chef’s knife and a racing pulse.
No stalking incels materialized from the hamper. No masked men lunged from the shower.
I sagged against the bathroom doorjamb, the blade tip touching the tile.
My phone vibrated on the counter. The sound made my shoulders jump.
Unknown number, again. Same as before.
Hands shaking, I opened it.
You move fast when you’re scared.
A second bubble appeared.
You should have moved faster back then.
Something in me snapped.
I typed, fingers jabbing the screen.
Who is this?
The reply was instant.
We are everyone you ignored.
I stared at the words until they blurred, my vision going prickly around the edges.
This is what you get. For leaving. For not loving him enough. For running.
The door buzzer sounded.
I yelped, the knife nearly slipping from my grip.
The intercom crackled. A man’s voice, flat. “Ava Cross.”
My lungs seized. “Who is it?”
“Open the door.” No introduction, no delivery company script. Just command.
Adrenaline burned through the fog. “No. Tell me who you are or I’m calling the police.”
A pause. Then, “They already proved they’re useless.” The faintest thread of contempt under the words.
Ice slid down my spine. “I’m calling nine-one-one.” I fumbled for my phone.
“They sent me.” The voice sharpened, like he was punching each syllable through the speaker. “Ethan’s brother.”
The world went very quiet.
I stared at the intercom like it had grown teeth.
Cole.
I hadn’t seen him in over a year. Not since the night I broke up with Ethan and Cole showed up at the apartment the next day, all cold anger and tight jaw, to collect his brother’s things. We’d exchanged maybe five sentences. None of them had been pleasant.
For a crazy second, I wondered if this was some sick joke. If the messages had escalated into cosplay.
“Prove it,” I said. My voice sounded steadier than I felt.
A rustle, then a different sound came through the intercom: knuckles rapping against metal. “Top right hinge of your front door is loose,” the man said. “Deadbolt is cheap, cylinder’s old. You have a secondary chain you never use, and your camera’s a dummy. Bought it off Amazon for thirty dollars, right?”
My stomach pitched. Someone had been staring at my door long enough to memorize its flaws.
“Look out your window, Ava.”
The use of my name did something strange to my insides.
Clutching the knife, I walked to the living room. The street lay two stories below, a grid of parked cars and cracked pavement. A tall man in a dark jacket stood on the sidewalk, face tilted up, one hand in his pocket like he had all the time in the world. Short dark hair buzzed close to his head. Broad shoulders. Stance casual, somehow coiled.
Even from here, I recognized the angle of his jaw.
He lifted his free hand and held up his phone. My number flashed on the screen.
I answered the call without thinking.
“Happy now?” His voice was lower, richer, unfiltered by the cheap intercom system. It thrummed straight through my chest.
“Why are you here?” I gripped the window frame with my free hand.
“Buzz me in.”
“No.”
A pause. “You’re holding a knife.”
I jerked back from the glass, pulse clawing at my throat.
“How do you—”
“Reflection. Put it down.”
“You have no right to tell me—”
“Ava.” The way he said my name this time—clipped, impatient—ignited a flicker of the old resentment in my chest. “If I wanted to hurt you, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
The words weren’t exactly soothing.
“Then what do you want?”
“To keep you alive.”
Silence expanded between us. The city noise narrowed to a dull hum.
I swallowed. “I didn’t ask you to do that.”
“You didn’t have to.” His gaze stayed locked on my window, unreadable from here. “Open the door. Or I break in, and we start this on an even worse foot than we already have.”
He meant it. I could hear it in the flat, unbothered cadence. He’d do it and deal with the fallout later.
My fingers hovered over the buzzer button. Every instinct screamed no. Not him. Anyone but him.
But the image of the anonymous texts, the blurred photo of my front door, the cop’s bored eyes—they pressed on the other side.
Cole Maddox was a lot of things. Unforgiving. Rigid. The embodiment of every judgment I’d ever heard about myself.
He was also the only person who’d ever scared me and made me feel safer at the same time.
My thumb trembled. I pressed the buzzer.
The door lock downstairs clicked, echoing faintly up the stairwell. A beat later, I heard heavy footsteps on the stairs, measured and unhurried.
I set the knife on the kitchen counter with a soft clatter, wiped my damp palms on my jeans, and turned as my front door handle tested the deadbolt.
“Ava,” Cole’s voice came through the wood, closer now.
I unlocked it.
The door swung inward, and there he was—larger than the last time I’d seen him, more carved-out. Dark eyes took in my face, then the room, in a single sweeping assessment.
His gaze snagged on the knife.
“Cute,” he said, one brow lifting. “That would’ve lasted you about three seconds.”
Heat flared in my cheeks. “You break into my building, insult my self-defense skills, and I’m supposed to what, say thank you?”
He stepped inside, the door closing behind him with a soft snick. The apartment felt suddenly smaller, crowded with his presence.
“This isn’t a social call,” he said. “You’re on a list, Ava. And not the BuzzFeed kind.”
My pulse stuttered. “What list?”
He reached into his jacket, pulled out a manila folder, and dropped it onto my coffee table. Papers fanned out—printouts, screenshots, my own face staring back at me from different angles.
He watched me like he was waiting to see which part would break me first.
“Congratulations,” Cole said quietly. “You’ve just become a priority target for a group of people who think emotional pain is a crime punishable by death.”
My world, already tilted, tipped a little further.
I looked up at him, at the brother of the man whose name had become my private curse, and realized with a cold, sinking certainty that whatever my life had been this morning—it was over.
“Start at the beginning,” I said, my voice rough. “And don’t you dare lie to me.”
