I’d sent the message to Ats, letting him know what happened a few hours ago and the exchange between us wasn’t great. He was pissed, and I can’t say I bmed him, but he wasn’t mad at me. He was mad at the situation. I was pretty sure he’d would let Papa know what had happened, which mean I wouldn’t need to worry about the cops anymore.

  Not that I was worried to begin with. I hadn’t been the one to kill him, after all. I just needed to put it all behind me and not worry about it. I had to go grocery shopping, so that’s what I was going to do.

  I got dressed in the comfiest clothes I had that weren’t pajamas and threw my hair into a ponytail. No makeup today, I couldn’t care less there wasn’t anyone I was trying to impress and it would take way too much effort.

  My hand was on the door handle and I paused, dropping my head in defeat. Mama would kill me if I was caught out in town looking like this. After all, a Gionatti had an image to maintain and—in her words—going around looking like a bum did not cater to that image.

  So, I turned around, changed clothes, did my hair, and put on makeup. I liked dressing up, just not every single day. It was something I needed to get used to, and something I’d deal with. We had an image to maintain.

  It only took an hour to get all the groceries I needed. I loaded them into the car and then drove home. Luckily, there were no more flowers in my car this time.

  There, were, however, flowers sitting on my counter at home. I ignored them as I put the groceries away and then turned, picking them up and fully pnning on tossing these one too. My phone dinged with a notification.

  Unknown: Don’t.

  I frowned and gnced at the flowers in my hand. Surely it wasn’t about them. Had to be a wrong number. I tossed them in the trash can. My phone dinged again.

  Unknown: You don’t listen very well, love.

  I stared at the text message and then whipped my head around. My door had still been locked, there hadn’t been anything out of pce, and I didn’t feel like I was being watched.

  Responding to the text message was a bad idea, right? This was obviously the person that had been leaving me the flowers. How had they gotten my phone number? How did they know I threw them away?

  Cameras? That was a possibility. If he was able to get into my apartment to leave flowers, then surely hidden cameras weren’t too much of a stretch.

  I sat down on my couch, the phone dangling from my fingers. Should I respond to the text or just ignore it? No other messages had come through. It was probably a prank and I was just being paranoid.

  My phone cnked onto the table and I leaned back to stare up at my stained ceiling. I really didn’t want to think about it at all. Too much had already happened and I really didn’t need this added onto it.

  Telling my Papa and Mama would be the best course of action, or hell, even the police. But…between the murder and me being a suspect in that murder, I didn’t hink either option was a good one. If this creep was still doing this shit when the murder shit was taken care of, I’d bring it up to them.

  For now, I’d do what I do best and ignore the problem. Phantom of the Opera—the 2004 version—would serve as a wonderful distraction. There was something about the Phantom’s voice thatg just did things to me.

  I immersed myself into my favorite movie for the next two hours. By the time it was over my stomach was gnawing at my spine so I got up and made myself lunch.

  The rest of my day went by as normal. I tidied up after I ate and now I was getting ready for my evening jog. I’d already washed the makeup off and changed into my running clothes.

  Music was queud up on my phone and I was ready to go. I didn’t pop my earbuds in though, not until I was outside my apartment building.

  I was halfway through my run when movement caught in my periphery. I slowed to a walk and turned in the direction of whatever it had been. There was someone in the shadows of one of the buildings. I could barely make them out, but they were there, a human-shaped area that was just slightly darker than everything around it. I peered into that area, trying to see them better. Male, definitely male by how broad the shoulders were.

  He took a step forward and my eyes were drawn to the bakava. The bottom half of a skull covered where his face would be. There was something about it that tugged on my memories. I should recognize it, but for some reason I just couldn’t think of where I knew it from.

  The man inclined his head to me and stepped back into the shadow. I just stared at him, where I knew him to be. Something about him sent tingles up my spine. It felt like I knew him, but how would I know if I did? I couldn’t see his face.

  I decided to cut my run short, feeling inside the pockets of my leggings for the pepper spray that was there as I headed back home.