The phone hit the carpet with a dull thud, but Sofia just stared at it ,unblinking, frozen.
Got you, liar.
Her lungs forgot how to breathe.
Naomi's voice crackled through the laptop speaker. "What? What is it? Sofia?!"
Sofia grabbed the burner phone and turned the screen toward the camera.
Naomi's expression collapsed. "No. No no no. He knows."
"I told you it was risky!" Sofia's voice cracked as she backed away from the desk. "He traced it. Somehow. He found out it was me."
Naomi was already typing furiously. "Okay. We wipe everything. The messages, the dummy email, the spoofing tools, everything. Do not log back into anything from your home Wi-Fi. It's how he got us in the first place."
Sofia's heart raced. "What if he tells Harper now? What if he tells my dad?!"
"Not yet," Naomi said, trying to stay calm. "He would've done it already. He likes control. He likes power. He's going to twist this first. Use it."
Sofia paced in circles. "What do we do now?"
"I'm coming over," Naomi said without hesitation. "We need to talk face to face. This is too big."
Fifteen minutes later, Naomi slipped in through the side gate like she had so many times before — breathless, eyes scanning the backyard like she expected Ian himself to be standing there in the shadows.
Sofia was still trembling as she opened the door. The moment Naomi stepped inside, Sofia locked it behind her.
"He knows," Sofia said again, her voice thin and shaky. "He messaged me directly. Called me by my name."
Naomi's face darkened. "You're sure it was from the original account? Ian's?"
Sofia nodded and held up the phone. "IanKeller_83. That's the one. He wrote: 'Sofia. Got you, liar.'"
Naomi's jaw clenched. "Upstairs. Now."
They hurried into Sofia's room and shut the door behind them. Naomi dropped her bag on the bed and immediately began unzipping it, pulling out a backup USB drive and a stack of printed screenshots.
"We delete the dummy account first," she said. "Then we clean everything. He must've traced the IP back to my place."
Sofia dragged a hand through her hair, pacing in tight, agitated circles. "I thought using your Wi-Fi would keep us safe. I thought spoofing it would throw him off."
Naomi fired up her laptop. "Clearly, we underestimated how smart — and how dangerous — he is."
Downstairs, the front door clicked open.
Neither of them heard it.
Footsteps crossed the hardwood floor , slow, steady, deliberate.
Harper had come home early.
She'd left her meeting an hour ahead of schedule. She hadn't planned to , just felt… off. And now, as she stepped into the house and heard voices upstairs urgent, sharp . she paused.
She climbed the stairs quietly, instinctively, heart already racing before she knew why.
And then she stopped just outside Sofia's door.
Inside, the girls' voices were clearer now.
Naomi's: "You have to tell your dad. Or Harper. He's not going to stop unless someone stops him."
Sofia's: "I can't. You don't understand. If I tell them I made the fake account… if I tell them I was the one who led Ian to her—"
Harper's heart stopped.
She leaned closer.
Sofia: "He thinks I'm her, Naomi. He thinks we're in love. He called me Harper for weeks."
Naomi: "And now he knows you're not her. That makes him dangerous."
Silence.
Then Sofia's soft, broken whisper:
"He knows my name. Ian knows who I am."
Harper's blood turned to ice.
She pushed the door open.
Both girls jumped, Naomi nearly knocking her laptop off the bed.
Harper stood in the doorway , pale, stunned, and utterly still.
She looked at Sofia, then Naomi. Her voice came out quiet and calm , which only made it worse.
"Please tell me this is not what I think this is ," she said.