Claudia Sims POV:
The icy wind tore through my thin black suit, whipping my long hair across my face. I stood on the wet pavement under the flickering neon lights of Manhattan. I took a deep breath. For the first time in five years, the air filling my lungs wasn't tainted by Ashton's suffocating control. It was freezing, but it was mine.
I stepped to the curb and threw my hand up. A yellow cab splashed through a puddle and slammed on its brakes in front of me.
I slid into the cracked vinyl backseat. "Where to, lady?" the driver asked, his heavy Brooklyn accent chewing through the words.
"East Village. The Starlight Motel," I said.
I wasn't going back to the penthouse. Ashton would freeze the credit cards with my name on them within the hour. That was his standard operating procedure for punishing disobedience.
The cab sped through the rain-slicked streets. I stared out the window, watching the blurred city lights streak past. With every block we traveled, the softness in my eyes hardened into something sharp and unbreakable.
The cab pulled up to the curb. I paid the driver with the emergency cash I kept in my shoe lining and pushed open the glass door of the motel.
The lobby smelled of old cigarettes and damp mold. The bartender doubling as the front desk clerk was half-asleep. He slid a rusty brass key across the counter, barely looking up. He had no idea he was handing a room to the woman currently exploding across every social media feed in the country.
I climbed the creaky wooden stairs. Each step groaned under my weight. I unlocked room 204 and pushed the door open.
The room was tiny and dark. I threw my wet jacket onto the yellowed bedspread and walked straight into the cramped bathroom.
I stood in front of the peeling mirror and looked at my exhausted, pale face. I turned the rusty faucet, cupped the freezing tap water in my hands, and splashed it violently onto my face. I scrubbed my skin until it was red, washing away the last microscopic trace of weakness.
I walked back into the room. I reached into the hidden lining of my skirt pocket and pulled out the heavy, military-grade encrypted phone.
The black casing was covered in deep scratches. It held the bloody, violent history of my family's collapse. I had built this device to survive the capital slaughter that wiped out my parents.
I held down the power button. The screen flickered, glowing with a dark blue light. A prompt appeared, demanding a thirty-two-character dynamic password.
My thumbs flew across the small keyboard. Five years hadn't erased my muscle memory.
The phone let out a sharp electronic chirp and unlocked. The interface was entirely blank. There were no apps, no photos. Just an empty contact list with a single, black letter: *A*.
My thumb hovered over the call button. A sharp pang of guilt twisted my chest. I had cut him off five years ago. I disappeared into Ashton's shadow to make sure my family's enemies didn't track me to him. I did it to protect him, but I knew I had broken him.
In the corner of the room, the ancient tube TV buzzed to life. An entertainment news channel was playing.
Ashton's face filled the screen. He was standing outside the museum, looking devastatingly sad. He sighed heavily into the microphones.
"Claudia has been suffering from severe paranoia and delusions due to immense work pressure," Ashton lied, his voice thick with fake pity. "She needs medical help, not media attention."
The camera cut to Bianca. She wiped a dry eye and sniffled. "Please, just give Claudia some tolerance. She isn't in her right mind."
I stared at the screen. The dogs were turning reality upside down. The guilt in my chest evaporated, replaced by a freezing, absolute hatred.
I stopped hesitating. I pressed my thumb down hard on the green dial button.
The encrypted line hissed with static. Every crackle sounded like a hammer hitting my ribs.
The phone didn't even complete the first ring. The line clicked open. He had been waiting by this device for one thousand, eight hundred and twenty-five days.
"Is it you?"
The male voice coming through the speaker was a low, gravelly rumble. It was shaking with an intensity that bordered on madness.
Just those three words shattered the armor I had worn all night. My throat clamped shut.
I closed my eyes. A tear slipped down my cheek, hot and silent. I forced my voice to remain perfectly cold. "It's me, Archer."
A loud crash echoed through the receiver, like a heavy solid wood chair being violently kicked into a wall.
Archer's breathing came through the speaker, heavy and ragged. He sounded like a beast that had been locked in a lightless cage for eleven years, finally catching the scent of his owner.
"Give me the location," he commanded, his tone shifting into something terrifyingly absolute. "I'll be there in ten minutes."
"Archer's voice was as cold as a blade dipped in ice: 'Who touched you? I want his life.'"
