Chapter 99 You Were Warned

• The silence in the house was unsettling.
• Not the comforting kind of quiet that lulls one into sleep. No. This was the heavy, suffocating silence that clung to the walls like shadows—thick, watchful, and unnatural.
• Zara lay in bed staring at the ceiling, her blanket bunched at her waist. The events of the day replayed in her mind like a haunting reel: the withdrawn modeling deal, the headlines splashed with her name and Imani’s, the whispers she imagined behind every screen.