Chapter 69 The Reckoning Begins

• The darkness in Clara’s apartment was suffocating, heavy with the weight of something unseen, something waiting. The soft tick of the wall clock echoed in the silence, each second dragging like a warning. Clara, curled up on the couch, barely noticed it as she sifted through files, her mind racing with everything that had gone wrong.
• A sudden creak in the hallway snapped her attention upward.
• Her heart hammered.