### **Chapter 4: The Game Beneath the Surface**
She can still feel his gaze long after he's gone. The stranger who wasn't a stranger. The man who knew too much.
She walks home with measured steps, every sound heightened—the rhythmic tap of her boots against pavement, the distant wail of a siren, the hushed whispers of people who don't know they're being overheard.
Inside her apartment, she locks the door.
She doesn't know why she does it—it's never stopped anything before.
Her laptop is still open where she left it, the screen dark except for that single sentence.
*"I am being watched."*
She forces herself to delete it.
Not because she doesn't believe it.
Because she **knows** it's true.
She sinks into her chair, fingers flexing against the cool wood of her desk, grounding herself. She needs proof.
She needs confirmation that this isn't paranoia, that the cracks in her reality aren't just imagined.
So she does something reckless.
She types his name. The man from the café.
The search yields nothing.
Not even a trace.
She searches again. Variations, assumptions—anything that might link him to something real. But it's as if he doesn't exist.
She exhales sharply, frustration tightening her chest.
Maybe she's overthinking.
Maybe she's being ridiculous.
Then—an email notification.
No sender. No subject.
Just a single sentence.
*"You're getting too close."*
Her blood runs cold.
For the first time, she understands—this isn't just surveillance.
This is **a game**.
And she has just made her first move.