Sarah POV:
The taxi pulled away from the curb, the glittering facade of the hotel shrinking in the rearview mirror. My flight wasn't until tomorrow, but the airport felt like the only sanctuary in a city of enemies.
As we merged onto the freeway, the driver glanced back at me. "You sure about the airport, ma'am? No luggage."
His simple observation pierced through my haze of adrenaline. He was right. I couldn't just run. Not yet. Leaving now meant leaving everything behind—my laptop with the original files, my passport, the few things that were solely mine. This escape had to be clean. Final.
"Change of plans," I said, my voice finding a new, harder edge. "Take me home."
The silence in the house was a physical presence. Ethan hadn't come back. I walked through the rooms he had filled with his ambition and his lies, and I began the demolition. I pulled a shoebox from the back of my closet, the one filled with photos of us. Us smiling in Paris, us laughing on a beach in Mexico, us at a dozen black-tie events, his arm possessively around my waist.
One by one, I tore them in half. The sharp rip of glossy paper was a viscerally satisfying sound. I shoved every gift, every memento, every piece of him into a black trash bag.
As I sat in my car the next morning, the engine off after dropping off my resignation, my phone rang. It was Ethan.
"Baby! You'll never guess what happened," he said, his voice ecstatic-utterly oblivious. "We're going to be on the cover of Prestige magazine. Our engagement! We need to start planning the wedding right away. Something big, something everyone will remember."
I could hear Olivia's high-pitched laugh in the background. "Tell her to pick a date in June, darling," she cooed.
Ethan mumbled something to her, then spoke back into the phone. "Gotta go, baby. Big things are happening. Love you."
He hung up. He hadn't even asked where I was or if I was okay. He just assumed I was waiting by the phone for him, ready to fall back in line.
My hand trembled. I opened Instagram. Olivia had already posted. A picture of her and Ethan, clinking champagne glasses. The caption was a poisoned dart: To new beginnings with the man who always had my heart. Some things are just meant to be.
My phone rang again. An unknown number.
"Sarah? It's Noah." Ethan's Consigliere sounded weary, his professional calm frayed at the edges. "There was an... incident. Ethan saw the news coverage from the gala, Olivia said a few things... he's at Cedars-Sinai. He's asking for you."
I felt nothing. A vast, empty space where concern should have been. A breakdown? After everything he had done, I didn't believe it for a second. This wasn't a collapse; it was a strategy. He had failed to trap me with a diamond, so now he would try to chain me with guilt.
"She just dropped him at the ER and left," Noah added, a note of genuine disgust in his voice. "He's putting on quite a show."
He's asking for you. The words were a summons, an attempt to trigger the old reflex of the woman who fixed everything. The woman who saved him.
But that woman was gone. She had died on that stage last night.
I took a breath, the sound heavy in the quiet car. "I'm on my way."
One last time. I would go and watch the performance. And then, finally, I would be free.
