The private elevator to the penthouse required a key card and a fingerprint.
Abigail pressed her thumb to the scanner. The light flashed red, then green. The doors slid open, reflecting her distorted image in polished steel.
The harsh lighting only made the damage look worse.
The bruise on her forehead had darkened to eggplant purple, ringed with sickly yellow. Her lip had swollen, splitting fresh when she tried to straighten her face. The coat she clutched around her was ruined, stained with alley water and things she didn't want to identify.
Stepping into the foyer, Abigail nearly collapsed.
The marble floor was so clean. The air smelled of lilies and money. Somewhere in the apartment, a clock ticked with mechanical precision, marking seconds she had almost stopped counting in a Brooklyn dumpster.
"Mrs. Shepard?"
Brenda emerged from the kitchen corridor, wiping her hands on her apron. The housekeeper's eyes widened, her hand flying to her mouth.
"Oh my God. Oh my God, what happened?"
Abigail held up one hand. "Don't."
Brenda froze, mid-step. She had been with the Shepard family for fifteen years, long enough to know the boundaries, long enough to recognize when Mrs. Shepard became someone who didn't want to be touched.
"I fell," Abigail said. The lie came out smooth, practiced. "I was at a gallery opening in Brooklyn. The stairs were dark."
"You need a doctor," Brenda said, her voice firm despite the tremor in her hands. "At least let me get the first aid kit. You're bleeding on the floor."
Abigail looked down. There was a small, dark spot on the marble where she stood. She hadn't noticed.
"The first aid kit," she repeated, as if the words were in a foreign language. "Yes. Bring it to the guest bathroom."
Brenda didn't move. "Mrs. Shepard, please. Let me call Dr. Chen. Or the hospital. Those cuts on your forehead are deep."
"No." Abigail's voice cracked sharply. She softened it, seeing Brenda flinch. "No doctors. No hospitals. Just the first aid kit. Please."
Brenda hesitated, her eyes scanning Abigail's body, cataloging the damage she couldn't hide. The limp. The way she held her left arm against her ribs. The blood drying in her hairline.
"Brenda," Abigail's voice was barely a whisper. "Did he call? Did my husband call to check on me?"
Brenda avoided her eyes, suddenly very interested in a spot on the wall. "Mrs. Shepard... Mr. Shepard is probably very busy with the merger in Frankfurt. You know how he gets when..."
"He didn't call." Abigail stated, the words tasting like ash. He was off in Paris with Candace, while she bled in a gutter. The agonizing sting of betrayal pierced her chest so deeply that, for a moment, she completely forgot the throbbing pain of her cracked ribs. She was nothing to him.
"Good." Abigail nodded slowly. "Keep it that way."
Brenda disappeared down the hallway, her footsteps quick and anxious. Abigail stood alone in the foyer, dripping on the marble, and wondered how much longer she could keep pretending that her life was anything but a carefully constructed lie.
The first aid kit arrived in Brenda's trembling hands. The housekeeper set it on the bathroom counter, her eyes still wide with worry. Abigail thanked her quietly and closed the door.
Peeling off the ruined coat, Abigail felt it stick to her arms, wet and heavy. Underneath, her silk blouse was torn at the shoulder, stained with rust-colored water. Her skirt was ruined. Even her underwear felt contaminated, soaked through with alley filth.
Turning on the shower, she made the water as hot as she could stand.
Stepping in before it warmed up, Abigail gasped as the cold spray hit her bruised skin. Then the heat came, building, and she leaned against the glass wall and let it pound against her shoulders.
The water ran brown for a long time.
Watching it spiral down the drain, Abigail let the water carry away pieces of Brooklyn. The fear. The desperation. The moment when she'd believed Attilio might answer, might care, might come.
The shower lasted until her fingers wrinkled, until the hot water started to cool, until she couldn't feel anything except the distant throb of her ribs.
Wrapping herself in the robe hanging on the door, Abigail felt the thick Turkish cotton swallow her. His robe, technically, monogrammed with initials that weren't hers. She'd never bothered to get her own.
Inside the first aid kit, a small brown bottle of iodine awaited. The label was worn, the liquid inside dark and medicinal.
Standing before the mirror, Abigail pulled her wet hair back from her face.
The gash on her forehead needed stitches. She could see the white of subcutaneous tissue at its center, the edges already darkening with clotting blood. She'd had worse. She'd had better.
Pouring iodine onto a cotton pad, she pressed it to the wound.
The pain was white, electric, shooting through her skull. She bit down on the robe's belt, muffling the sound that tried to escape. Her eyes watered, blurring the mirror, blurring the woman who couldn't stop hurting herself.
A gauze pad was taped over the worst of it. The lip, she left alone. The bruises, she couldn't hide.
In the bedroom, she found the orange bottle in her nightstand. No label. Dr. Chen's discreet handwriting on the prescription pad, written three months ago after the nightmares started again.
Shaking two pills into her palm, Abigail swallowed them dry.
The taste lingered, bitter and chemical, as she climbed into the guest bed and pulled the covers to her chin. The sheets were cold. They were always cold.
Closing her eyes, she waited for the darkness.
It found her anyway.
The alley. The boots. The whistle.
She was running. The walls closed in, and she could hear them laughing behind her.
"Attilio," she begged into the darkness.
Waking with a gasp, Abigail found her hands clawing at the sheets, her heart trying to escape through her throat.
The room was gray with dawn. She could see the Manhattan skyline through the window, the buildings emerging from the fog.
She touched the pillow beside her. Cold. Empty. Always empty.
Picking up her spare phone from the nightstand, Abigail opened the news app. The headline hit her harder than the baseball bat. "Attilio Shepard and Candace Padilla: A Match Made in Paris." There were photos of them smiling, walking close together. She stared at the screen, letting the painful reality wash over her. She was left to rot in an empty bed while he paraded another woman around the world.
The pills had given her three hours. Three hours of broken, hunted sleep, and now she was awake in the world where Attilio Shepard had chosen someone else.
Lying still, she counted her breaths, waiting for the shaking to stop.
Somewhere across the city, in a different bed, her husband was probably waking up too. Probably reaching for his phone, checking markets, checking messages, checking everything except the wife he'd left bleeding in the rain.
Or maybe he wasn't waking up. Maybe he was still asleep, tangled in sheets that smelled of a perfume that wasn't hers.
Abigail sat up.
The movement sent fresh pain through her ribs, sharp enough to make her gasp. She pressed her hand against the bandage on her forehead and felt wetness. The wound had opened in her sleep.
That hardly mattered now.
Walking to the window, Abigail pressed her forehead against the cool glass. The city spread below her, indifferent, magnificent, full of people who had never hidden in dumpsters or swallowed their screams.
She would survive this.
Survival was her only option. Having survived worse, she knew she would get through this.
The thought felt hollow, rehearsed, but she held onto it anyway, the way she'd held onto the broken glass in the alley, knowing it would cut her but needing something sharp to keep her grounded.
Remaining at the window until the sun cleared the buildings, Abigail waited until the city turned gold and busy and real.
The pain in her ribs flared, sharp and unbearable. She had run out of her own painkillers, but she knew Attilio kept a stash of strong prescription painkillers in his study. She walked down the hall and pushed open the heavy oak door.
Needing the medicine, Abigail headed into his study and approached the red oak desk. The drawers had electronic locks. As she reached for the handle, she noticed a heavy file folder tucked just out of sight in the bottom drawer, slightly ajar. A sudden, overwhelming premonition seized her chest. She desperately needed to know what he was hiding inside.
