CHAPTER TWO HUNDRED AND THIRTY SEVEN – DESPITE THE REPERCUSSIONS

In the days that followed, Jasmine found herself adrift in a waking nightmare, her every move scrutinized, her every action weighted with the knowledge that she was being watched, judged, and found wanting. The other women regarded her with a mixture of thinly-veiled suspicion and outright hostility, their allegiances firmly entrenched in Ethan's camp. Whispers and sidelong glances dogged her footsteps, a constant reminder that she was an outsider, an interloper in a world that she could never truly hope to understand. And then, just when she thought the psychological torment couldn't grow any more acute, the anonymous warnings began to arrive. The first was a simple slip of paper, tucked beneath her pillow like a sinister calling card. The message was stark, the words scrawled in a harsh, jagged hand: "Leave now, or suffer the consequences." Jasmine's blood ran cold as she read the chilling missive, her fingers trembling as she crumpled the paper into a tight ball and hurled it a