Chapter 89: Unseen Threats

The air in the office was thick with tension, the usual hum of activity outside the window now just a distant echo. Malia sat at her desk, a pile of paperwork in front of her, but her mind was far from the numbers and contracts. She hadn't been able to focus for days. Not since the gala, not since Evelyn had revealed the depth of her bitterness, and not since the threats had begun.

It was a subtle kind of fear that gnawed at her insides—a quiet, suffocating thing that didn't show itself in broad strokes. It wasn't the kind of danger you could easily see, the kind that might alert Nixus if he caught wind of it. These threats were insidious, slipping into her life like shadows she couldn't outrun.

The first one had come two days ago. A simple, innocuous letter, slipped under the door of her office, written in neat, almost too-perfect handwriting:

"Stop playing in the lion's den, Malia. You've been warned."