Clifton gripped the black disposable phone so tightly the cheap plastic creaked. He walked over to the floor-to-ceiling windows, his reflection a dark ghost against the glass, and stared down at the busy morning traffic of New York City crawling far below. His eyes were dark, calculating, churning with something he refused to name.
He looked back at the screen, his gaze fixed on the now-disconnected number. His brow furrowed deeply, a cold, precise thought crystallizing in his mind. The criminal ring behind this number had to be found. Completely dismantled. Erased.
The sudden sharp ring of the suite's doorbell shattered his focus. Clifton shoved the burner phone into the inside pocket of his suit jacket, the movement quick and reflexive.
He walked over and pulled the door open.
Bedford Joseph stood in the hallway, holding two paper cups of black coffee, a teasing grin already spreading across his boyish face. His blonde hair was artfully tousled, his blue eyes glinting with mischief.
Bedford walked right past him into the room without waiting for an invitation. His eyes swept over the wrecked bed—the tangled sheets, the deep impressions of two bodies, the single discarded earring glinting on the nightstand—and he let out a loud, obnoxious whistle that echoed off the walls.
"Never thought I'd see the day the hospital's biggest workaholic spent the night in a hotel," Bedford joked, shoving a coffee cup into Clifton's chest hard enough to make him grunt. "Thought you were married to your scalpel."
Clifton ignored the joke entirely. He took a sip of the scalding black coffee, letting it burn his tongue. "Give me the update on the hospital's sting operation," he demanded, his voice flat and all business.
Bedford dropped the grin instantly. His face turned dead serious, the playful friend replaced by the sharp-eyed surgeon. "The interns messed up the sting operation yesterday. Badly."
Bedford paced the floor, his free hand gesturing sharply as he explained that the black-market egg retrieval ring they were tracking was more elusive than anyone had anticipated. "They specifically target desperate college girls who need cash fast," Bedford said, his voice hardening. "Girls with sick parents. Girls with tuition due. Girls with no one to turn to."
"The surgical risks are a death sentence," he continued, his tone turning grim, almost haunted. "They operate in basements. Filthy, unsterilized basements with concrete floors and a single bare bulb. No anesthesia. Nothing to numb the pain." He stopped pacing and looked at Clifton directly. "The girls usually hemorrhage on the table. If they survive the bleeding, they're sterile for life. But most of them..." He shook his head. "Most of them just bleed out and die right there."
Clifton's fingers tightened around his paper coffee cup. The cardboard buckled under the sudden pressure, hot liquid sloshing over his knuckles. He didn't flinch. His knuckles turned stark white against the brown paper. The image of Emilia's pale, stubborn face—jaw set, eyes blazing with terrified defiance—flashed in his mind with brutal clarity.
His stomach dropped like a stone in deep water. Emilia was the prey. She was exactly the kind of desperate, cornered girl they hunted. And she was going to walk right onto that basement operating table and let them butcher her.
Bedford stopped pacing and looked closely at Clifton, his eyes narrowing. "Did you find a lead?" he asked, noting the sudden, rigid tension radiating from his friend's shoulders.
Clifton kept his face completely blank, a mask he had perfected over years of delivering terminal diagnoses. To protect her privacy—to protect her—he shook his head. "No," he lied, smooth as glass.
As soon as Bedford left the suite, the door clicking shut behind him, Clifton walked over to the leather sofa and sat down heavily. He pulled out his personal smartphone and dialed his assistant, his thumb jabbing the screen.
"Find every bank account linked to that black-market agency," Clifton ordered, his tone absolute and aggressive, brooking no delay. "Trace every wire transfer, every shell company, every alias. Now."
He hung up and pulled the black burner phone back out. He opened the text messages from last night. Emilia's desperate pleas for medical money filled the screen—each word a needle jabbing directly into his brain. Please. I'll do anything. My father is dying. Please.
Clifton yanked at his tie, loosening it violently, the silk hissing against his collar. He didn't want to get involved. He had a hospital to run. A reputation to protect. He didn't need some desperate college girl dragging him into her chaos.
But the thought of her bleeding to death on a filthy table—her pale skin going gray, her stubborn eyes going blank—made his chest physically ache. He couldn't let it happen. He wouldn't.
He walked into the bathroom and stared at his cold reflection in the mirror. A man with ice in his veins stared back. He had to stop her. And he had to use the only language she currently understood.
He typed a message to her number on the burner phone. His thumbs hit the keys with brutal, punishing force.
Stop contacting any other buyers immediately. If you do, I will hold you legally and financially responsible for your breach of contract last night.
He hit send. He tossed the phone onto the marble sink with a clatter, turned around, grabbed his coat, and walked out.
Across the city, in the university architecture studio, Emilia sat frozen in front of her drafting board. The fluorescent lights hummed overhead, casting harsh shadows across her face—the color of chalk, her eyes empty and hollow.
Her phone vibrated violently against the wood desk. The sudden buzz made her jump, her heart slamming against her ribs with painful force. She scrambled to grab it, nearly knocking over her coffee cup.
She stared at the screen. The unsaved number. The threat glared back at her in cold, black text.
Her hands began to shake so badly she nearly dropped the device onto the floor.
He was extorting her. The sick, twisted buyer from last night wasn't done. He was going to hunt her down and destroy her. A suffocating wave of terror crashed over her head, drowning her.
She tapped the screen, trying to type a reply, trying to beg him to leave her alone, to have mercy. But her fingers were completely stiff and useless. She couldn't form a single word. She slammed the phone face down on the desk with a crack, gasping for air.
The studio door pushed open. Her roommate, Paige Sawyer, walked in—a tall, athletic girl with kind brown eyes and a perpetually worried expression. Paige stopped mid-step, taking in Emilia's ashen face, her trembling hands, her hollow stare.
"Are you sick?" Paige asked, alarm sharpening her voice.
Emilia forced the corners of her mouth up into a sickeningly fake smile that felt like a wound splitting open. She shook her head, not trusting her voice. But beneath her ribs, her heart beat like a trapped bird battering itself against the bars of a cage. She knew, with bone-deep certainty, that she had just provoked a monster she could never escape.
