JASPER POV
When the line went dead I did not immediately react, which in retrospect was probably the most unsettling part of the entire exchange, because a sane man might have shouted or demanded the call be reconnected or at least checked the signal to make sure it hadn’t simply dropped, but I knew it hadn’t, I knew from the way the silence fell that someone on the other end had deliberately decided I was done hearing what was happening in that room, and I stayed there for several seconds with the phone still pressed to my ear, listening to nothing but the faint hum of an empty connection and the echo of her voice replaying in my skull.
She was there.
Not speaking sharply. Not arguing. Not even speaking in that irritating, self-righteous way she used to when she thought she was morally
