Chapter 137

Allison's POV.

The moment I stepped off the elevator, the silence wasn't silent at all. It was a dense, heavy quiet, like air before a storm, permeated by the unspoken acknowledgement that something monumental and deeply unwelcome had arrived.

I could feel every eye on me. They weren't just looking; they were assessing, cataloguing, dissecting the new variable in their carefully constructed ecosystem.

I came in with my glasses on. Thick, black-rimmed, deliberately ...