She tagged me.

Ethan saw it before I did. His expression flattened—dangerous and protective, always the same when someone went after Milo.

“I can respond,” he said quietly.

“No,” I shook my head. Paige wanted spectacle. She wanted me to look like the cold, overreacting surgeon who’d lost perspective. Ignoring doesn’t mean surrendering. Janice sent a formal letter to Paige and my parents: documented warning, screenshots attached, timestamps included, a reminder that public posts become legal evidence.

Paige didn’t retreat. She intensified.

Two weeks later, while I was scrubbed in for surgery, Ethan’s phone buzzed: motion detected, back deck.

He called between cases, voice tight. “Bella. Someone’s there.”

A chill slid down my spine. “Who?”

“The camera’s buffering.”

I slipped into an empty call room and opened the live feed. Sky and railing first, frame trembling. Then someone stepped into view: Paige. Oversized sunglasses, wide-brim hat, a laughable attempt at anonymity. She stood on the sand beneath the deck, hands planted on her hips, surveying the house like she was pricing it.

She moved toward the side gate connecting the beach path to the yard. The lock held. She rattled it sharply, filmed it on her phone, then looked straight at the camera and waved—slow, deliberate, smug. I can still reach you.

“Call the police,” I said.

By the time officers arrived, Paige was retreating. They stopped her, asked for ID, and issued a trespass warning. She stormed off, shoulders rigid.

“She’s escalating,” Ethan murmured.

“She’s unraveling,” I corrected. Control slipping looks loud.

That evening, Janice filed for a restraining order. At the hearing, Paige arrived with my mother; my father sat behind them, arms crossed, staring as if I’d broken some ancestral pact.

The judge, sharp-eyed, listened as Janice presented texts, posts, screenshots, police documentation, camera footage. Paige’s attorney called it “a family dispute blown out of proportion.”

The judge raised an eyebrow. “Family disputes do not include repeated trespassing.” She addressed Paige: “Why did you go to the property after being told not to?”

Paige’s jaw tightened. “Because it’s ours. It’s the family house.”

“Is your name on the deed?”

Silence.