Chapter 197 His Plan

• Lilly’s POV
• When I woke, the silence was deafening. The bed beside me was empty, the sheets cool where he had been. The door was still locked, the faint click of the latch echoing in my mind like a prison bell even though I never heard it lock. He had thought of everything, it seemed. My book lay neatly on the nightstand, as if mocking my confinement.
• I tried to read, flipping the pages without really absorbing the words, my eyes scanning lines that blurred together. Time dragged on, each second stretching into an eternity as I strained to hear something—anything—beyond these walls. Footsteps, a voice, the creak of a door. But there was nothing.