The room did not move, but everything in it felt displaced. Ryan stood frozen near the doorway, papers still clutched in his hand, his mind struggling to catch up with the scene unfolding in front of him. The tension was so thick it felt almost physical, pressing against his chest, tightening his throat. He didn't understand what had just happened—only that something had finally broken open.
His gaze dropped first to the laptop. Then to Kai. Then to Alina.
For a fleeting second, Ryan thought this was it. This was the moment Kai Arden had been waiting for—the moment where all suspicion crystallized into proof. The quiet final reveal. The victory.
But the silence said otherwise. Kai still hadn't responded. He hadn't even acknowledged Ryan's presence. He sat unmoving on the couch opposite the bed, posture rigid, shoulders slightly hunched forward, as if the weight of what he was seeing had physically bent him. His eyes were locked on the laptop screen, unblinking.
Alina's shoulders sagged. Whatever had been holding her upright—whatever tension had braced her spine and stiffened her movements snapped all at once. It left her exposed, raw, standing uncertainly near the edge of the bed, hands hanging uselessly by her sides.
Kai looked again at the screen. His eyes traced the words slowly, deliberately, as though he were rereading them in the hope they would rearrange themselves into something else.
"What is this?" he said quietly.
The question carried no accusation, and that made it heavier than any shout. The screen glowed stark and undeniable in the dim room. Property listings. Rental websites. Apartments. Studio flats. Shared housing. Short-term leases. Long-term leases.
Filters lined the left side—price ranges carefully selected, locations narrowed down, commute times highlighted. Tabs were open across the top, each one a variation of the same search. Notes sat in a column to the side, small and practical. Dates scrolled down the sidebar. Bookmarks starred in yellow.
"This—" Kai swallowed. His throat tightened painfully. "This is what you've been hiding?"
His breath left him slowly, unevenly, as though he hadn't realized he'd been holding it for a long time. Alina took a hesitant step forward, then stopped.
She was close to the bed now, fingers brushing the edge of the mattress, unsure where she was allowed to stand—unsure of her place in the room, in the moment, in front of him. Kai sat on the couch opposite her, knees apart, forearms resting on his thighs, the laptop balanced loosely in his hands.
They faced each other like that—separated by a few feet of space that felt impossibly wide.
"I'm looking for a place," she said quietly.
Kai's mouth opened, then closed again. He didn't know what to say because what flooded him wasn't relief, it was embarrassing, sharp and suffocating.
Embarrassment at the way he had watched her. In the way he had doubted her. At how easily he had convinced himself that silence meant deceit. At how certain he had been—so certain—that she was hiding something dangerous.
"A place?" he echoed faintly.
Ryan shifted. Only then did he realize what he was still holding. The call logs. The papers suddenly felt heavy in his hand—too heavy. Too personal. He reacted instinctively, folding them back and slipping them behind his back, as if hiding them could undo the invasion they represented. His eyes flicked from the documents to Alina, then to Kai. Silence stretched.
Kai closed his eyes. A memory surfaced—sharp, unwanted. You did cross-check me. Made me believe I was the winning one. Then blackmail me to sign the papers. Just because you wanted to live here?
The questions came rushing back now, louder than before, piling up without answers. Why?
As far as he remember she had a place to live, so why did she need his? He looked at her again, not like a suspect but like a person standing at the edge of something he hadn't wanted to lose. There were so many questions that was running through his mind. Why this house? Why the secrecy? He had no answers to any of the questions, and he knew that only one person could give them.
"Can you explain?" Kai said.
Alina inhaled slowly. She didn't sit down. She didn't pace. She stayed where she was, fingers curling into the fabric of her sleeve, grounding herself before she spoke.
"Once people realized you were staying there," she said,
"Everything changed." She exhaled slowly.
"People connected to you began showing up at my home—invading my privacy as if it no longer belonged to me."
She continued before he could interrupt. "At first, it was small things like someone asking if you were around or if I could pass on a message."
Her fingers tightened. "Then it became daily."
Her voice wavered slightly now. "Someone would come with a script saying he is the director. And sometimes someone claiming they needed to meet you urgently when they couldn't, they asked for your PA."
Ryan's discomfort deepened. He shifted his weight, eyes dropping to the floor.
"Reporters stood outside my door," Alina said. "I waited, hoping it would finally come to an end, but days just passed like that, and I became a prisoner in my own house; I couldn't even step outside."
She swallowed. "Then, I decided to rip the bell off my door just so I could have some peace inside. My ears kept replaying that same voice over and over again; I was going completely insane."
The room felt suddenly smaller. "I stopped sleeping properly," she continued. "I stopped answering unknown numbers. I stopped feeling safe." Her eyes flicked briefly toward the window, as though she could still see them there.
"I didn't hear any voices or noise outside at first," she said quietly. "I thought… it would be the perfect moment to step out, to escape the mess inside." She paused, her fingers tightening slightly as the memory resurfaced.
"But the moment I opened the door, they were there," she continued. "Reporters. Cameras. All of them focused on me. Questions came flying before I could even understand what was happening." Her gaze lowered, her voice thinning.
"I became the center of attention without choosing to be." She inhaled slowly, steadying herself.
"That's when I knew I couldn't stay there anymore," she said. "So I left."
Kai stared at her, something cold unravelling in his chest. How had he never thought of this? How had his mind jumped to betrayal, to manipulation—when the answer was this simple? This human? He glanced at Ryan. Ryan met his gaze for half a second, then looked away, shame flickering across his face.
Alina's voice softened as she continued, the weight of everything she had been holding finally pressing down on her.
"I didn't tell Maya," she said. "Not because she wouldn't listen—but because she has her own life. Her gaze shifted, briefly, toward Ryan. "I didn't want to become another problem she had to solve."
Ryan stiffened. The look wasn't pointed, yet it struck something in him all the same. A flicker of discomfort crossed his face before he turned away, shifting his weight as if the floor beneath him had suddenly grown unsteady. His eyes moved elsewhere—anywhere but back to her.
Kai noticed. The movement unsettled him. His gaze followed Alina's, then flicked to Ryan, searching his expression for meaning—for context, for an explanation—but Ryan avoided eye contact entirely.
After a beat, he straightened. Without a word, Ryan turned and walked out of the room, the door closing softly behind him. The silence he left behind was heavier than any sound. And in it, Kai and Alina were alone.