Vivienne's POV
The lock clicks behind me, and suddenly I can't breathe.
I'm inside his house. The house of the man who killed my sister.
My hands won't stop shaking as I drop my suitcase on the dusty floor of Room 7. Three years. Three years of searching, investigating, spending every penny I had to find him. And now I'm here, standing in a room that smells like old wood and broken dreams.
Just like him.
I pull out my phone and open the photo I've looked at a thousand times. Lily, age nineteen, laughing at the camera. Her hair is messy from the wind, and she's making that ridiculous face she always made when I tried to take serious pictures.
"I'm here, Lily," I whisper to the screen. "I finally found him."
My sister doesn't answer. She never will again.
The anger comes back, hot and fierce. It burns in my chest like fire, making my hands clench into fists. Ethan Cross thinks he's safe. He thinks he got away with murder. He thinks three years is long enough to hide from what he did.
He's wrong.
I hear him moving around downstairs. Walking from the kitchen to the living room. His footsteps are slow, tired. Good. I want him tired. I want him broken. I want him to feel even a tiny bit of the pain my family has felt every single day since that night.
I start unpacking, but my hands are shaking so badly I can barely unzip the suitcase. Inside are clothes, toiletries, and the things I've collected over three years of investigation.
Newspaper clippings about the hit-and-run.
Photos of Ethan from before the accident—smiling, successful, engaged to some pretty blonde woman who left him when things got hard.
Security camera footage I paid a hacker to recover, showing a car that matches Ethan's leaving the scene.
And Lily's journal. The one where she wrote about her dreams, her hopes, her plans for the future that never came.
I pull out Lily's favorite sweater—the purple one she wore all the time—and hold it to my face. It doesn't smell like her anymore. It just smells like my apartment, like dust and loneliness.
I haven't cried in six months. I trained myself to stop. Crying is weak, and I need to be strong for what's coming.
But right now, alone in this room, I feel the tears burning behind my eyes.
"I miss you," I whisper. "I miss you so much it hurts to breathe."
A floorboard creaks downstairs. Ethan is directly below me now.
I wipe my eyes quickly and stand up. No more weakness. No more tears. I'm here for one reason only: justice. Or revenge. I'm not sure there's a difference anymore.
I walk to the window and look out at the dying neighborhood. Broken streetlights. Overgrown yards. Houses that look like they're giving up, just like the people inside them.
This is where Ethan Cross ended up after destroying my family. This is his punishment—a slow death in a forgotten place.
But it's not enough. It will never be enough.
My phone buzzes. A text from Dr. Reeves, my therapist: Vivienne, please reconsider what you're doing. This path won't bring Lily back. It will only destroy you too.
I delete the message without responding. Dr. Reeves doesn't understand. Nobody does. They all want me to "move on" and "heal" and "find closure."
But how do you close a wound that never stops bleeding?
I hear Ethan's voice downstairs, talking on the phone. His voice is rough, stressed. He's probably talking to the loan sharks he owes money to. Good. Let him suffer. Let him know what it feels like to be trapped with no way out.
Just like Lily felt in those last moments before she died.
I spent months tracking down witnesses from that night. A homeless man who saw the car speeding away. A security guard who noticed broken glass on the street the next morning. Piece by piece, I built the case the police were too lazy to build.
And every piece led back to Ethan Cross.
I open my suitcase and pull out the last item—a small leather notebook. Inside are all my plans. Day by day, week by week, exactly how I'm going to make him confess. How I'm going to make him understand what he took from me.
Some people might call it torture. I call it justice.
A knock on my door makes me jump. I shove everything back into the suitcase and stand up.
"Ms. Ashford?" Ethan's voice comes through the door. "I just wanted to check if you need anything. Extra blankets? Towels?"
I open the door just a crack. He's standing there looking nervous, guilty. Like he already knows who I am and what I'm here to do.
But that's impossible. I was so careful. He can't know. Not yet.
"I'm fine," I say coldly. "I don't need anything from you."
He flinches at my tone. "Okay. Well, if you change your mind—"
"I won't." I start to close the door.
"Wait," he says. "I didn't catch your first name earlier. It's Vivienne, right?"
My blood turns to ice. Something in the way he says my name—like he's testing it, tasting it for recognition.
"Yes. Vivienne Ashford." I watch his face carefully.
For just a second—less than a heartbeat—something flashes in his eyes. Fear? Recognition? Guilt?
"Ashford," he repeats slowly. "That's an unusual name."
"Is it?" My heart is pounding so hard I'm sure he can hear it.
"I just... I feel like I've heard it before."
"Maybe you have." I hold his gaze, daring him to remember. Daring him to make the connection. "It was in the news a few years ago. My sister died in a hit-and-run accident. The driver was never caught."
Ethan goes completely white. His hand grips the doorframe so hard his knuckles turn white.
"I... I'm sorry for your loss," he whispers.
"Are you?" The words come out sharp as knives. "Are you really sorry? Or are you just saying what people say when they hear about someone dying?"
"I—" He can't seem to form words. He's staring at me like I'm a ghost.
Good. Let him be scared. Let him wonder if I know. Let him lie awake tonight thinking about all his sins catching up to him.
"I'm tired," I say. "I'd like to be alone now."
I close the door in his face and lock it.
My legs give out and I sink to the floor, shaking. That was too close. I almost lost control. Almost told him everything right there in the hallway.
But I can't. Not yet. The plan requires patience. It requires making him suffer slowly, day by day, until he breaks.
I hear his footsteps walking away, but they stop halfway down the hall.
Then I hear something that makes my skin crawl.
He's crying.
Soft, broken sobs coming from the hallway outside my door.
"I'm sorry," he whispers. "God, I'm so sorry."
Part of me wants to throw open the door and scream at him. Part of me wants to claw his eyes out. Part of me wants to watch him fall apart completely.
But another part—a part I don't want to admit exists—feels something else.
Something almost like pity.
No. No, I can't feel sorry for him. He's a murderer. He killed Lily and ran away like a coward. He doesn't deserve pity. He deserves punishment.
The crying stops. His footsteps fade down the stairs.
I pull out Lily's photo again and stare at her smiling face.
"I won't let you down," I promise her. "I'll make him pay for what he did. I'll make him—"
My phone buzzes again. Unknown number.
I open the text message, and my heart stops.
It's a photo. Taken from across the street. Through my window. Right now.
The photo shows me sitting on the floor of Room 7, holding Lily's picture.
Below the photo is a message:
I know who you are, Vivienne Ashford. I know why you're really here. And I know secrets about Ethan Cross that you don't. If you want the whole truth about the night your sister died, meet me tomorrow at midnight. Corner of 5th and Main. Come alone. Don't tell Ethan. Don't tell anyone. Or you'll never learn what really happened.
My hands are shaking so hard I almost drop the phone.
Someone is watching me. Someone knows everything.
And whoever they are, they know something about Lily's death that I don't.
I look out the window, but the street is empty. Dark. Silent.
But somewhere out there, someone is watching.
And they have answers I've been searching three years to find.