The apartment Anna shared with Sloane was in Queens. It was small, cluttered, and smelled of Sloane's acrylic paints and cheap incense. It was the only place in the world that felt like home.
Anna walked in and dropped her bag on the floor.
Sloane was sitting on the counter, eating cereal. She looked at Anna's face and put the spoon down.
"I saw the news," Sloane said. "He's a pig. A literal pig in a three-thousand-dollar suit."
"He's predictable," Anna said. She walked to the bedroom and pulled a suitcase from under the bed.
"You're leaving?" Sloane asked, hopping off the counter.
"I'm moving the timeline up," Anna said. She started throwing clothes into the bag. "I can't stay in the penthouse anymore. It's not safe."
She sat on the edge of the bed and pulled out her phone. She opened the Signal group chat.
Jaylene was sending photos of flower arrangements for the gala. Victoria was sending heart emojis.
Anna didn't type a goodbye. She didn't type a curse word.
She tapped the three dots in the corner.
Leave Group.
System Message: Anna Roth has left the group.
It was a small line of text in a sea of sycophancy. But it felt like pulling the pin on a grenade.
In a glass-walled office in Midtown, Grayson Warren was in a meeting about the Tressel acquisition.
His phone sat face up on the mahogany table.
The notification popped up.
Anna Roth has left the group.
Grayson frowned. He stopped listening to the lawyer droning on about liability caps.
She left the group?
Anna never did anything without permission. She didn't have the spine for it. She was probably throwing a tantrum because of the Page Six article.
He picked up the phone. He opened her contact.
He tapped out a message, then deleted it. This wasn't a lover's quarrel; it was a breach of protocol. He dialed her number. It went straight to voicemail. He tried again. Same result.
A cold spike of adrenaline hit his stomach. It wasn't heartbreak. It was the shock of a tool malfunctioning in his hand.
The door to his office burst open.
Preston Warren, his older brother, stormed in. Preston looked pale. He was holding a tablet.
"Get out," Preston barked at the lawyers. "Now."
The lawyers scrambled to gather their papers and fled.
"What is it?" Grayson asked, standing up. "Did Anna call you?"
"Worse," Preston said. He threw the tablet onto the desk. "Look at this."
Grayson looked.
It was a grainy video feed. Security footage. The timestamp was twenty minutes ago.
The location was the pedestrian path of the Queensboro Bridge.
A woman was standing by the railing. She was wearing a beige trench coat. Her hair was whipping in the wind.
It was Anna.
She was leaning over the rail. She was looking down at the dark, churning water of the East River. She looked small. She looked desperate.
In the video, she raised her hand. She was holding something.
"Is she..." Grayson's voice failed him.
"She's going to jump," Preston hissed. "Or she's thinking about it. This was sent to our PR team by a freelancer. We bought it before it hit TMZ."
On the screen, Anna threw the object into the water. Then she stood there, staring down, her hands gripping the rail.
Grayson felt his heart hammer against his ribs.
He didn't care if she died. He told himself that. But if she died now, right after the Jaylene news...
"If she jumps," Preston said, "Warren Capital tanks. We look like monsters. Jaylene's soft launch becomes a PR massacre."
Grayson stared at the figure on the screen.
"She's not going to jump," Grayson whispered. "She's too weak."
But his hands were shaking.
"Find her," Preston yelled. "Call security. Get her back. Put her in a clinic. Drug her. I don't care. Just get her off that bridge and out of the public eye."
Grayson grabbed his jacket. He ran out of the office.
He pulled out his phone as he sprinted to the elevator. He opened the tracking app he had installed on her phone three years ago.
Signal Lost.
The dot was gone.
She had thrown the phone into the river.
That's what he saw on the video. She wasn't jumping. She was destroying the leash.
Panic, cold and sharp, flooded his veins.
"Anna," he growled as the elevator doors closed. "You stupid, stupid girl."
