My heart was still racing as I sat up in bed.
Amelia’s hands were shaking as she held out her phone. I could barely focus on the screen at first, my mind still foggy from sleep and fear.
“Look,” she whispered.
I took the phone.
It was a message thread.
At first glance, it didn’t make sense. Just a series of texts, short sentences, some of them deleted. Then I saw the name at the top.
Leo.
My stomach dropped.
I kept reading.
The messages weren’t to friends. They weren’t school-related. They were to someone saved under a single initial.
And the tone… it wasn’t normal.
“Did you find anything?”
“I checked his office again.”
“He still doesn’t know.”
My chest tightened.
“Who is this?” I asked.
Amelia shook her head. “I don’t know. But there’s more.”
She scrolled.
Photos appeared.
Blurry ones at first. Taken from a distance. Then clearer.
My office.
My desk.
Papers I kept locked away.
My breath caught.
“Why would he…” I couldn’t even finish the sentence.
Amelia’s voice was barely steady. “Oliver… I didn’t stop there.”
She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small key.
“I found this in his room. Hidden inside one of his books.”
I stared at it.
I didn’t recognize it.
But I already knew I wasn’t going to like where this was going.
“Come with me,” she said.
We walked down the hallway in silence. Every step felt heavier than the last. The house, which had always felt safe, suddenly felt unfamiliar.
We stopped outside Leo’s room.
The door was slightly open.
The light inside was off.
Amelia pushed it gently.
“Look,” she whispered.
At first, I didn’t see anything unusual.
Then my eyes adjusted.
And I saw the wall.
Covered.
Photos.
Printouts.
Notes.
All of them… about me.
My schedule.
My workplace.
My routines.
My life.
My hands started shaking.
“What is this?” I whispered.
Amelia didn’t answer.
Because she didn’t need to.
I stepped closer.
There were dates written next to everything.
Times.
Observations.
Like someone had been watching me.
Studying me.
For a long time.
My heart was pounding so hard it hurt.
Then I saw something that made my blood run cold.
One photo.
Older.
Faded.
A woman holding a baby.
Nora.
And next to her…
A man I had never seen before.
But underneath the photo, in Leo’s handwriting, were the words:
“I need to know the truth.”
The room went silent.
Everything inside me shifted.
Because in that moment, I realized something I had never considered before.
Leo hadn’t been hiding something to hurt me.
He had been searching.
For something I never gave him.
The truth about where he came from.
And I had no idea what that truth would cost us.
