The Message Meant for Someone Else

“One message. One mistake. No way back.”
You probably think it’s funny, how small mistakes ruin big lives. You’ve seen it before—someone sends a text to the wrong person, there’s an awkward laugh, an apology, and that’s it. Maybe a relationship ends, maybe a rumor starts, maybe a secret leak. But people move on. Not me. Not this time. Mistakes don’t just break your life. They shift it sideways—like a building knocked off its foundation by a quake. One second, you’re standing safe in your tiny, predictable apartment with your frozen pizza and unpaid bills. The next, you’re crawling through the dark underbelly of a city you thought you knew.
My name is Aron, and I’ll tell you what happened because I’m the only one left who can. If you think I’m just a bystander, you’re wrong—I’m the last witness and the only confessor. Maybe you’ll believe me. Maybe you won’t.It started with a text. One text that didn’t belong on my phone.
Tuesday night, 11:23 PM. I was sprawled on my couch, empty pizza box on the table, phone in hand, half-watching the rain blur my window. I’d been ignoring my ex’s messages all day— Mira always knew how to pick at scabs until they bled. So, when the buzz came, I thought it was her again.
I should’ve been asleep. But I wasn’t. Too much coffee, too much paranoia, too many debts. When my phone buzzed at 11:30 PM, I almost ignored it. But you know that feeling when your gut says: Look?
“It’s done. Meet me at the dock. Bring the bag. No cops.”
The number wasn’t saved. I didn’t know the voice behind those black letters.
I texted back. “Wrong number?”
A minute later: “Don’t do this, Aron.”
They knew my name. I didn’t even check the sender. I just swiped it open.
That was it. I stared at the message for a full minute. The sender’s name was “Nate.” I didn’t know a Nate. Not really. It had to be a wrong number.
I typed back “Who is this?”
“Don’t play dumb. Bring the bag. Now. “I should have blocked the number. I should have turned off my phone. But the word “done” hooked my mind.
I don’t own a gun. All I had was an old camping knife. So, I pocketed that and the flashlight from my junk drawer, put on my raincoat, and stepped into the storm. The docks were twenty minutes away, on the river’s edge where the city rotted at the seams. Barges, abandoned warehouses, rusted fences. The place cops forgot so criminals could remember. When I got there, the river was a sheet of oil under the yellow moonlight. A lone figure leaned against a piling, hood up, phone glowing in his hand. He looked up when he saw me.
“Where’s the bag?” he asked.
He was maybe 25 , skinny, damp hair stuck to his forehead. He didn’t look dangerous but desperate.
“I think you texted the wrong person,” I said.
His eyes narrowed. “Aron, right?”
How the hell did he know my name?
I swallowed. “Yeah.”
He scoffed. “You think you’re funny? We don’t have time for jokes. They’ll come looking. Where’s the bag?”
“I don’t have a bag,” I said. “I got a text. That’s all.”
He stepped closer, rain dripping off his hood. “You’re telling me you don’t have the money or the photos?”
“Look, man—” I started.
He swung so fast I didn’t see it coming. His fist cracked my jaw, stars burst behind my eyes, and I went down into the mud. When I looked up, he was holding my phone. He scrolled. His face turned pale. “Shit!!" He threw my phone at me. “You weren’t supposed to get that.”
“Who was?” I asked, spitting blood.
He didn’t answer. He turned, looked over his shoulder at the empty dock. “You need to forget this."
“What’s in the bag?” I asked.
He glared at me like he might kick me again. Instead, he hissed, “Ask Lila.”
He didn’t answer. He ran. Just bolted into the night, his footsteps splashing into darkness. I lay there in the rain, bruised jaw, bleeding lip, phone buzzing in my palm. Lila. The name clanged around my skull.
But at 2 AM, back in my apartment, ice pack on my jaw, I remembered something. A few weeks ago, I got another wrong message. From an unknown number.
“Lila wants red tulips. Not white.”
Who the hell was she? Dockside Avenue smelled like rotting fish and rain-slick trash. The address led me to an old brick warehouse with one grimy light over a steel door. I knocked. No answer. The door creaked open.
Inside: darkness.Smell of mold and old cigarettes.I flicked my flashlight on. There was a desk. A folding chair. An ashtray full of lipstick-stained butts. And taped to the desk was a Polaroid. A woman. Blonde hair, eyes like steel. A tulip tattoo on her collarbone.
Written in sharpie under the photo: “LILA - DOCK 12 - MIDNIGHT.”
Someone was here—I felt it. The smell of perfume still lingered. I moved deeper into the warehouse, my flashlight caught a shape—something slumped against the wall. I stepped closer. My stomach turned.
A man. Late forties. Slick hair, gold watch half-buried in blood. His throat was a red grin.
A bag sat next to him. Black duffel, unzipped. Inside: stacks of cash, a cheap digital camera, and a folder of photos. I flipped it open. Pictures of the man, with women. Hotel rooms. Cars. Back rooms of nightclubs. And one photo—of the woman from the Polaroid. Lila. Sitting on his lap, looking straight at the camera, smiling like she knew exactly what she was doing.
Back at my apartment, I spread the photos on my kitchen table. There were maybe fifty. All dirt—politicians, cops, men with gold watches and dead eyes. And always, somewhere in the frame, the same tulip tattoo. Lila.
My phone buzzed again. Same number. Nate.
“Did you take the bag?” I didn’t answer.
A second later: “Did you talk to anyone?”
A knock at my door. I crept to the peephole. A woman stood there, hood up, rain dripping off her shoulders. I couldn’t see her face, but I saw the tattoo—red tulip, blooming on pale skin. Lila.
She knocked again. Soft. Almost polite. I opened the door an inch, knife in my pocket.
“Aron,” she said. “Can I come in?”
“Why are you here?” I asked.
“You have my bag.”
“It’s not yours.”
She smiled. “Everything’s mine if I say so.”
We stood like that. The city hummed beyond her shoulder. The rain softened. My heart thundered.
“I didn’t mean to get this,” I said. “It was a mistake.”
She shrugged. “No such thing as mistakes, Aron. Only choices.”
She stepped inside, uninvited. Sat at my table, flipping through the photos like vacation postcards.
“You kill him?” I asked.
She raised an eyebrow. “Would it matter?”
I didn’t answer. She tapped the folder. “This was leverage. Insurance. He forgot rule number one: if you dig dirt, you better bury it deep.” She looked at me—really looked. Her eyes were gunmetal grey. “Give me the bag.”
“And then?”
“And then I walk out, and you forget you ever met me.”
“And if I don’t?”
She smiled wider.
“Then Nate comes back. But he doesn’t knock.”
Nate hit me the same as before. But this time he hit harder. I remember the cold mud on my back, his knee on my ribs. “Where’s the bag?” he snarled. His breath smelled like cheap vodka.
His phone buzzed. He checked it, cursed, then looked at me—his eyes flicked over my shoulder, as if someone else was giving him orders through the rain. “You’re lucky,” he growled. “Lila says keep you alive. For now.”
I should have given her the bag. I should have handed over the money, the photos, the camera—everything. Let her disappear back into the city’s veins. But I didn’t. Because curiosity is a disease.
“I want in,” I said.
Her smile slipped. Just a hair. “In?”
Lila asks “Why?”
“Because I’m broke. I’m nobody. And you—” I gestured to the photos— “you’re interesting.”
She laughed. A sound like broken glass. “You’re a fool.”
“I am,” I agreed. “But I’m your fool now.”
She leaned back, studying me. The rain stopped tapping the window. The silence pressed in.
“Alright, Aron,” she said. “Alright. Let’s see if you’re useful.”
The next days blurred. I hid the bag in my closet, under old blankets. Lila came and went like a ghost—always at night, always in black. She’d hand me instructions, names, places. My job was simple: deliver envelopes. Pick up packages. Never open them. Never ask questions. Of course, I asked questions. Turns out, Lila didn’t just blackmail, she brokered secrets. photos, recordings, rumors that could ruin men with one whisper. She sold them to the highest bidder—or the most desperate. She didn’t care which. Nate was her muscle. Her fixer. And me? I was the idiot in the middle, thinking I could keep up. I didn’t sleep that night. It ended the way it started. With a message.
Friday. 3 AM. My phone buzzed.
“We know what you did. Meet me at Dock 12. Come alone.”
Not Nate. Not Lila. Unknown number. I called Lila. Straight to voicemail.
So, I went. Dock 12 was fog-wrapped, silent. The river breathed mist over the pylons. I stood under the same light where Nate punched me days ago. This time, I had the bag slung over my shoulder. A figure stepped out of the mist. The man from the white sedan. Sunglasses gone. His eyes were pale, empty.
“You have something that doesn’t belong to you,” he said.
“Who are you?” He didn’t answer. He lifted his coat. I saw the gun.
“Where’s Lila?” I asked. He laughed. “You still think she’s real?”
He stepped forward. “Give me the bag.”
I did. He unzipped it, checked the cash, the photos. Satisfied. He looked at me.
“You were never part of this,” he said. “You’re not part of it now.”
He raised the gun. The shot echoed off the river. I flinched. But it wasn’t me who fell. Behind him, Lila stood, smoking gun in hand. I stared at the man in the mud. Dead eyes staring at the sky.
Lila stepped over the body. Took the bag. Looked at me.
“Thank you, Aron,” she said.
“For what?”
“For being exactly who I thought you were.”
And then she walked into the mist. No goodbye. No explanation.

Back in my apartment, I tried to sleep. Failed. I pressed a frozen bag of peas to my ribs and stared at the cracked ceiling. At 3 AM, there was a knock at the door. Not a cop’s knock. Not a friend’s knock. A polite, soft tap. Like someone sure you’d open up. I did.
She was there—Lila. This time, I saw her clearly. Black hair tucked into a beret, leather gloves, rain on her shoulders like diamonds.
“You’re bleeding,” she said.
“You’re trespassing,” I said.
She stepped inside. The smell of expensive perfume, cigarettes, and something else—danger in a bottle.
“I need the bag,” she said.
“I don’t have it.”
She looked at me, one eyebrow arching. “You will.”

The Old Man
Three days later, I found the bag. Not where I thought—under a loose plank in my building’s basement. I didn’t find it alone. An old man was sitting beside it. Thin, translucent skin, eyes milky and drifting. “Don’t take it,” he rasped when he saw me. “It doesn’t belong to you.”
“Who does it belong to?” I asked.
He lifted a bony finger. “Her.”
“Lila?”
A shudder. He muttered something. “Lilith.”
Before I could ask more, he closed his eyes. I took the bag and ran.

The Photos
I should have just handed it over. But of course, I opened it. Money, yes—bundles wrapped in elastic. But deeper: new photos. Not just dirt on politicians or bored husbands. These were worse. Children. Bruises. Names scrawled on the backs. I dropped them like they were on fire. I realized then—this wasn’t just blackmail. This was insurance. And someone was willing to kill to keep it hidden.

The Detective
He found me in a diner. I was halfway through a stale cup of coffee when he slid into the booth across from me. Rumpled trench coat, cheap aftershave. Detective cliche—except the badge he flashed was real.
“Aron, right?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Detective Rao,” he said. “We need to talk about Lila.”
I tried to play dumb. Didn’t work. He put a photo on the table. Same tulip tattoo, same cold eyes. But in this one she was in cuffs. “Her real name’s Lilith Romanov,” he said. “Russian expat. Runs blackmail rings. Sometimes kills the people she blackmails. Sometimes hires idiots to do it for her.”
I almost laughed. Almost. He leaned closer. “We know she’s using you. Where’s the bag?”

I Double Cross
I told him I’d think about it. I lied. I met Lila instead—under a flickering neon sign that said Hearts Motel.“He’s onto you,” I said.
She didn’t blink. “Rao’s a cockroach. Always scuttling around in the dark.”
“Who’s the old man?”
She smiled. “My father.”
That stopped me. “What?”
“He started the game. I’m just finishing it.”
She took my hand. Cold fingers, warm smile. “You want out?”

The Warehouse
Lila told me to meet her at an abandoned paper mill. I brought the bag. Nate was there too silent, bruised knuckles, gun at his hip. We stepped inside. The smell of oil and mildew. Echoes of drips in the dark. Lila turned to me. “You looked in the bag, didn’t you?” I didn’t answer.
“That’s a problem,” she said softly. Nate raised the gun.

The Twist
Before he could pull the trigger, a voice boomed through the mill.“DROP IT.” Spotlights snapped on. Rao and half a dozen cop, guns drawn. Nate froze. Lila didn’t. She grabbed my wrist—cold nails digging in—and shoved me forward, straight into Nate.
I hit the ground, bag skittering away. Lila vanished into the shadows like smoke. Nate ran. The cops chased him. I lay there, staring at the cracked ceiling, heart hammering.

The Deal
At the station, Rao leaned on the table between us. He looked tired. Older than before.
“You did good,” he said.
“I didn’t do anything.”
“You stayed alive. That’s something.”
He slid the bag across the table. “It’s evidence now. We’ll bury these people with it.”
“And Lila?” I asked.
Rao lit a cigarette—illegal inside the station, but nobody stopped him.
“She’ll turn up. They always do.”
He studied me through the smoke. “Next time you get a wrong text, Aron, delete it.”

One Last Message
I went home. Showered. Tried to sleep. My phone buzzed. Unknown number.
“See you soon, darling. — L” I lay awake until dawn. Listening for a knock that never came.

The Hunter
I waited for Lila to come back. I really did. Every night I sat by the window, watching the city choke on its own lights. But Lila—Lilith, never knocked again.
A week turned into two. Rao checked in twice, the last time with a polite threat: “If you see her again and don’t call me first, I’ll make you wish Nate had pulled that trigger.”
But Rao didn’t get it. He didn’t understand. It was never about the bag. Or the photos. Or even the money. It was about her. And the fact that she thought she could use me, then toss me aside like a burnt match.

The First Clue
She left breadcrumbs. Of course, she did. It was part of her game—power in the illusion that you could catch her if you were clever enough. The first crumb came in the form of an obituary. Buried in the back of the city paper: “Elias Romanov, 78, passed away quietly in his sleep.” The old man in the basement. Her father. Or handler. Either way, dead now. I went to the funeral. I wore a black suit that smelled like mothballs and stale hope. Only four people were there—two silent old men, a priest, and me. No Lila. But on the fresh dirt, someone left a single white tulip.

The Safehouse
It took three weeks of late-night research, half-remembered rumors, and a few threats of my own to find Lila. Her safehouse was a brownstone tucked behind boarded windows in the old industrial quarter. I watched it from my car for two nights. No lights, no movement—just an expensive car in the garage, the same one I’d seen her drive once when she thought I wasn’t looking. I could have called Rao. But this wasn’t Rao’s story anymore. It was mine.

Face to Face
I picked the lock at 3 AM. Silence wrapped around me like plastic. I moved through the foyer, past marble floors and a row of mirrors that made me feel like a ghost walking through someone else’s dream. She was waiting in the kitchen. Same black hair, same steel eyes. A glass of whiskey in one hand. She looked tired.
“Aron,” she said, voice soft as silk. “Did you come to kill me?”
“No,” I said. “Not yet.”
She laughed, and for a second, I saw her as human. Just a woman in too deep.
“What then?” she asked.
“I want in,” I said.

The Bargain
She poured me a drink. Pushed it across the marble island. I didn’t touch it.
“You don’t know what ‘in’ means,” she said.
“Then teach me.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m tired of being your errand boy. Because if I’m not on your side, I’m on Rao’s. And we both know what he wants.” She leaned back, swirling the amber liquid in her glass. “And what do you want, Aron? Money? Power? Me?”
I didn’t answer.
She smiled like she’d won.

Initiation
I thought she’d test me with a job. But Lila never did anything small. She took me to a high-rise at midnight. We stood across the street in the rain, looking up at the penthouse where the lights were still on. “Inside,” she said, “is a man named Sebastian Crowe. He launders money for people who’d rather you never knew their names.”
“And he’s about to make a mistake.”
She handed me a gun. Cold, heavy. I’d never held one before.
“Put this in his hand,” she said, “after he’s dead.”
I stared at her. “Who’s going to kill him?”
“You are,” she said.

The Blood Price
I did it. Don’t ask me how or what it felt like. It’s easier to remember the rain that night than the warmth of the blood. When it was done, she took the gun back, wiped it down, slipped it in Crowe’s limp hand like a lullaby. “That’s it?” I asked. She touched my cheek. Her fingers were cold. “Now you’re in.”

Becoming The Hunter
After Crowe, there was no going back. I learned her world piece by piece. Drop-off points in Chinatown. Secret codes hidden in flowers. Envelopes slipped into the pockets of senators at black-tie galas. Rao watched from the shadows. Sometimes I’d spot him tailing me, his battered Ford two cars back. Sometimes he’d sit at the bar beside me, buying me whiskey I never drank.
“You think you’re in control?” he’d say.
And I’d lie through my teeth. “I know I am.”

The Turn
It couldn’t last. Lila trusted me—but not enough. Every time I got closer, she slipped away. So, I did what she’d taught me. I turned her tricks back on her. I paid off one of her drivers—a jittery kid named Felix who owed me more than he knew. He told me about the safe. The real safe. Not the cash or the blackmail files. The vault. All her leverage, all her dirt, all the secrets that made her untouchable—locked in a single metal box beneath an abandoned butcher shop on the west side. I didn’t need Rao’s badge for this. I needed the truth.

The Vault
I broke in on a Wednesday. Felix killed the cameras. I killed the lock.
Inside: rows of folders, hard drives, old Polaroids in yellowing envelopes. Every secret she’d ever bought, stolen, or bled from someone.
At the center: a file with my name on it. I opened it. Photos of me—sleeping, eating, bleeding on the dock. Copies of every message, every lie. She hadn’t picked me by mistake. She’d been watching me for years. The final page: a single note
“USEFUL. ONLY UNTIL HE’S NOT.”

Endgame
When I stepped out of the butcher shop, she was there. Lila, leaning against my car, smoking a cigarette in the moonlight.
“You really thought you could hunt me?” she asked.
I raised my phone. “I sent copies to Rao.”
She smiled. “You think Rao scares me? He’s on half those tapes.”
I almost dropped the phone. “You’re lying.”
“Am I?”
She flicked the cigarette away. Walked up to me. Close enough to kiss, or kill.
“Come with me, Aron,” she whispered. “We can burn this city to the ground. Or you can try to run. But you’ll always be mine.” I looked at her—and I saw myself in her eyes.

The Knock
“You’re not the same boy who got the wrong message,” she said. A small smile, sad this time. “I made you better.”
“No,” I said. “You made me worse.” Her eyes flicked past my shoulder — to the open door, to the waves pounding below.
“Then do it, Aron.” So, I did.
One shot. Clean. The piano echoed as she fell against it, a single red tulip dropping from her pocket to the dusty floor.

The Final Knock
They said Lila bled out in that alley. They lied. I found her trail in scraps: a doctored passport in Chicago, a dead accountant in Montreal, a hotel receipt in Lisbon with her old alias — Lilith S.
Rao told me to let it go. But Rao was gone too — retired, or buried under the dirt he once helped her shovel. I sold my car, dumped my name, lived on cash and fake IDs. It wasn’t about revenge anymore. It was about ending it.

The Hunter
I don’t know which one of us fired first. Maybe it was her. Maybe it was me. Maybe the city itself decided. When the smoke cleared, she was gone. Just a blood trail leading into the night. Rao found me an hour later, still standing in the alley, phone in one hand, gun in the other.
“Is it over?” he asked. I didn’t answer.

Showdown
I tracked her to Marseille — the old city by the sea where ghosts hide in crumbling villas and salt air. I found her at dusk, alone in a stone house on the cliffs. She was at a piano, tracing the keys with fingers that once held my fate like a knife.
“Aron,” she said, voice soft as ever. “Did you come to kill me?”
“No,” I lied. “Not yet.”
She didn’t beg. Didn’t run.
“You were always my favorite mistake,” she said.
I raised my pistol. My hand didn’t shake.
“Goodbye, Lila.”
One shot. One red tulip fell from her pocket to the dusty floor.
I buried her in her own garden, under the flowers she loved enough to lie about. No headlines. No sirens. Just the wind off the sea and the weight of what I’d done. Somewhere in the folds of her coat, a phone buzzed with a message meant for someone else. Not for me. Not anymore.
THE END..
The Message Meant for Someone Else
A novella by Rohit Pegu (Aron)