TOM RIDDLE (3)

The click of the door echoed like a gunshot in the empty house. The silence that followed was heavy, almost tangible, and every shadow seemed to watch me with its own eyes. Just four years ago, this house had been our refuge; now it was an empty stage, haunted by its lies and my fear.

—I need time* *"—she had said, her voice so cold it chilled me to the bone—. There was nothing more. No excuses. Only the weight of his absence, and a secret I already sensed. His glances with her, shared laughter that excluded me, and that sticky feeling in my stomach that screamed that everything I thought was safe was about to crumble. When he finally moved out, leaving me alone with our son, I thought I could pull myself together. But the impossible soon appeared: her, his best friend, smiling where she shouldn't, spending time with him as if my world didn't exist. Rage consumed me, a black fire that filled my bones. I couldn't allow someone like that to touch what I loved most. And then, between betrayal and fear, I discovered another truth no one expected: there was life growing inside me… and it was his. My heart twisted between the betrayal that burned me and the silent threat of my own hope. "

Tom Riddle, her brother, always in the shadows, always watching, approached with eyes that seemed to read every secret she held. His gaze wasn't innocent; it was promise and warning, desire and danger. Every time he looked at me, I felt the world tilt, the ground beneath my feet disappear, and that any decision could be my downfall… or my liberation .