Isabella's world shrank to the figure standing before her. Her breath caught in her throat, her heart hammering against her ribs, an unrelenting beat that echoed in her ears. The kitchen's dim glow did little to soften the sharpness of the features she never thought she would see again.
The man before her wasn't a memory. He wasn't a whisper of the past. He was flesh and bone, standing in her home, speaking her name like it still belonged to him.
Her fingers twitched around the knife's handle, but she didn't lift it. She couldn't.
"I-Isabella." His voice wavered, but the weight behind it was steady.
She swallowed, her throat dry. "You're dead."
The words barely made it past her lips, but they filled the silence between them, pressing against her chest, making it harder to breathe.
A slow exhale. A step closer.
She flinched, her body screaming at her to move, to run, to do something other than stand there like prey caught in a predator's gaze.
