Aly texts Tyler asking him to come over wearing a mask like the one used by the Faceless Man.

Tyler shows Josh the screenshot Aly sent, and Josh immediately recognizes the Faceless Man's mask as his own.

Josh breaks into Aly's home while she is at work, films a video on her bed, and leaves his mask behind.

Aly comes home to find the Faceless Man's mask on her bed and realizes someone had been inside her house.

Josh sends Aly an explicit video filmed in her bedroom; she masturbates to it while he cuts the camera feed.

Josh sends Aly flowers and a package of security equipment, including a device to locate the hidden bedroom camera.

Josh waits in Aly's car after her hospital shift and drives her home in silence while wearing his mask.

Aly performs oral sex on Josh while he drives and accidentally stabs his hand with the knife he gave her.

Aly hires Josh at Tyler's apartment to identify the Faceless Man, not knowing Josh and the Faceless Man are the same person.

Josh breaks into Aly's bedroom for a sexual encounter but refuses intercourse, insisting she must know his real identity first.

Brad breaks into Aly's home carrying rope, chloroform, and a knife; Josh knocks him unconscious at the door.

Aly accidentally kills Brad by taping both his mouth and nose shut while preparing to transport him.

Aly drives Josh to her uncle Nico's home and asks the mafia-connected family to help dispose of Brad's body.

Josh stays alone in Brad's house to wipe Aly's name from Brad's computer, then escapes through an office window.

Aly and Josh simultaneously propose to each other during a consensual sexual hunting game in the woods.

Aly's obsession with a masked social media creator sets off a chain of events when she texts her ex-hookup Tyler asking him to roleplay using the Faceless Man's mask. Tyler unknowingly shows the screenshot to his roommate Josh, who immediately recognizes himself and begins stalking Aly. Their dangerous game escalates from a break-in and explicit videos to a car ride encounter that leaves Josh with a stab wound and Aly with complicated feelings. After Aly hires Josh — not knowing he is the Faceless Man — to track the creator down, their relationship deepens through increasingly intimate and risky encounters. The arrival of Brad Bluhm as a genuine threat forces Aly and Josh to work as a team, accidentally killing him and relying on Aly's mafia-connected uncle Nico to cover it up. Their bond, forged through crime and trust, ultimately leads them to a joyful mutual proposal during a playful chase in the woods.

The central crimes, encounters, and milestones driving Aly and Josh's story.

Aly comforts Brinley, a new nurse visibly shaken after treating a patient with a close-range shotgun wound.

Josh finds hundreds of Aly's explicit comments on his videos, fantasizing about him breaking into her home.

Fred approaches Josh during the break-in, purrs, and rubs against him — the first animal Josh has ever petted.

Aly and Josh begin exchanging messages through social media; she realizes he is watching her through hospital security cameras.

Aly locates and disconnects the hidden camera in her bedroom using the detector Josh secretly sent her.

Aly meets Josh at Tyler's apartment to hire him to identify the Faceless Man, and they openly flirt during the meeting.

Josh calls his mother from his apartment and implies for the first time that he is romantically involved with someone.

Josh discovers Aly planted a tracking device in his backpack; he drives a pattern spelling out a mocking response and discards it.

Aly submits blood from Josh's hand wound and hairs from his sweatshirt to hospital lab technician Veronica for DNA testing.

Brad grabs Aly during his hospital treatment; she retaliates and is summoned to HR after he accuses her of threatening him.

Josh blindfolds Aly during a sexual encounter, briefly removes his mask, and kisses her for the first time.

Veronica calls Aly at Josh's apartment to reveal that Josh's father is a convicted and notorious serial killer.

Tyler explains Josh's brutal childhood and his lifelong fear of becoming like his father, and endorses their relationship.

Nico's men abandon Josh inside Brad's house after discovering multiple bodies stored in the basement.

Nico privately threatens Josh after dinner; Josh reveals he recorded the conversation and uses it as leverage against Nico.

The story's secondary layer begins with Aly's professional life, where she comforts a shaken new nurse and tries to balance her exhausting work with her growing fixation on an anonymous masked creator online. Josh's discovery of Aly's explicit fantasy comments launches his surveillance of her, starting with secretly befriending her cat during the break-in and planting a camera she eventually locates and removes. Their banter through hospital cameras and planted gifts establishes the playful dynamic beneath their danger, and their first in-person meeting at Tyler's apartment lets them flirt openly while Josh conceals the truth. After Josh discovers Aly's tracking device and Aly sends his DNA to the hospital lab, the stakes rise when Brad's harassment at the hospital and Aly's DNA results both come to a head the same night. Tyler's frank explanation of Josh's childhood finally gives Aly the context she needs to accept Josh fully, while Nico's men abandoning Josh at Brad's house forces her to act. The pool closes with Nico privately threatening Josh and Josh neutralizing the threat by playing a secret recording, proving he can protect himself and Aly within her dangerous family.

The hidden moments and discoveries that quietly shape Aly and Josh's deepening connection.

Aly masturbates to the Faceless Man's videos and develops a deep, obsessive attraction to the anonymous masked creator.

After reading Aly's explicit fantasy comments, Josh decides to stalk her and spends a week planning how to break in.

Aly notices the Faceless Man addressed her as Alyssa in a message — a name she has never posted online.

Josh sends Aly a video of himself gently playing with Fred, which convinces her he must be a good person.

Aly stitches Josh's wounded hand at her home while Fred settles contentedly in Josh's lap throughout.

Aly wakes to discover Josh has bought her breakfast, shoveled her driveway, and charmed her elderly neighbors.

Aly tells Josh she wants several days of space to reconsider how fast their relationship is moving.

Treating a patient who resembles her deceased mother triggers Aly's deeply buried guilt about the accident that killed her.

Josh comforts Aly as she confesses for the first time that she has blamed herself since age sixteen for her mother's death.

Josh asks Aly to be his girlfriend while they drive toward Nico's home with Brad's body in the trunk.

Josh intentionally breaks a door to trigger Brad's house alarm so police can search the property without a warrant.

Josh and Aly flee on foot through a dark snowy forest as police spotlights sweep the trees around Brad's house.

Josh tells Aly about nearly discovering one of his father's victims in a car trunk when he was eleven years old.

Josh removes his mask during intimacy for the first time, and he and Aly confess that they are falling in love.

Aly and Josh return to their Airbnb to find their newly adopted kitten Maud wrestling with Fred in a pile of toilet paper.

The novel's emotional core runs through a series of small but decisive moments, beginning with Aly's private obsession with the Faceless Man and Josh's fateful decision to act on her comments by stalking her. Early revelations — like Josh knowing Aly's full name despite her never sharing it online, and Fred's easy trust of a man Aly cannot yet vet — quietly signal that this unusual connection might be real. Their relationship deepens through domestic acts of care, including Josh shoveling her driveway and Aly stitching his wound while the cat rests between them, before Aly's confrontation with a patient who resembles her mother forces her to finally share her deepest guilt. A late-night conversation in which Josh also reveals his own haunting childhood memory marks the point where their trauma becomes shared rather than hidden. The final turning points — Josh triggering an alarm to expose Brad's victims, confessing his love with his mask off, and the epilogue's addition of a new kitten — show Aly and Josh moving from obsession and secrecy into a chosen, open life together.

The key decisions, discoveries, and emotional breakthroughs that define Aly and Josh's transformation.