Pain was the first thing she felt.
Her hips throbbed in time with her pulse.
Her thighs felt bruised from the inside out.
Even her scalp burned, tender from fingers that had pulled too deep.
Aria opened her eyes.
The room felt unfamiliar!
Hold up, this wasn’t her room.
She lay still for a moment, staring at the ceiling, trying to remember.
Then she felt the weight on her waist.
A hand…warm and heavy.
It spanned the curve of her hip with a possession that made her stomach twist.
She turned her head slowly, just an inch, just enough to see the shape of him in her peripheral vision.
Dark hair.
Pale skin.
She looked away.
If she looked at his face, she would remember.
If she remembered, she would cry and she didn’t have time to cry.
She took a deep breath then looked around the room.
Her dress was on the floor in pieces.
Her underwear was gone.
Her shoes, one broken, one intact lay scattered near the door.
But on a hook by the closet hung a black shirt, oversized, clearly his.
Move, she told herself.
Now, while he sleeps.
She peeled the sheet back by centimeters, holding her breath when the fabric made noise.
The hand on her waist didn’t tighten.
His breathing didn’t change.
She slid from the bed like, her feet finding the carpet, her legs trembling but holding.
She didn’t look back.
She pulled the black shirt over her head.
It fell past her hips, smelling of him cedar and pine.
She carried her shoes in her hand, her bare feet silent against the floor.
The door was unlocked so she slipped through easily.
Two guards stood in the hallway.
They turned as one, their eyes widening at her tangled hair, at the bruises on her legs, at the shirt that clearly didn’t belong to her.
One opened his mouth to speak.
Aria ran past them, her bare feet slapping marble, her breath coming in ragged gasps that echoed in the concrete shaft.
Twelve flights.
She counted them because if she didn’t count them, she would scream.
Her thighs burned.
Between her legs, something warm trickled down her leg.
She ignored it.
She had no time for shame.
She hit the lobby at a sprint.
The concierge looked up.
A woman in a fur coat whispered to her companion.
Aria kept her head down and pushed through the revolving doors into the cold morning air.
The city was awake.
People hurried past with coffee and briefcases, too busy to notice the girl in the oversized black shirt limping down the sidewalk.
She walked for blocks, her arms wrapped around herself, the shirt too thin for the weather.
A taxi slowed, the driver leaning out with a leer.
She ignored him.
A group of teenagers pointed.
She ignored them too.
Her building was a converted warehouse in a neighborhood her father would have driven through with the doors locked.
The super was sweeping the front steps.
He looked up, took in her appearance, and quickly looked away…the kind of man who had learned not to ask questions in this zip code.
She climbed three flights because the elevator was broken again.
Each step sent pain radiating up her spine, but she pressed her palm against the wall and forced herself upward.
Her apartment was one room.
A mattress on the floor.
A hot plate on a crate.
She closed the door and engaged every lock…..two locks, a chain, a deadbolt.
Then she slid down to the floor, her knees hitting the worn carpet, and finally let herself breathe.
You’re here, she thought.
You’re safe.
She didn’t crawl to the bathroom to scrub herself raw.
Not yet.
She sat on the floor, her back against the door, and made herself inventory what she had.
The Dubai client.
The email from three weeks ago: We love the preliminary sketches, when can we see the full collection?
She had a skill.
She had needles and thread and a mind that could see a finished gown before the fabric was cut.
She had a brother…Ethan stuck at St.
Catherine’s, his treatment hanging by the thread of Richard’s mood.
She couldn’t get him out today but she could find a way to pay for his care herself.
She could get him away from Richard’s leverage.
She needed a new apartment.
This one was compromised.
Richard knew where it was, or he would find out soon enough.
She needed somewhere he couldn’t reach.
She needed money for a deposit.
She needed to finish the Dubai collection, take the payment, and run.
Never go back to the Monroe house, she told herself, the words sharp and clear as a seam ripper.
You are done being their ghost.
She pushed herself up.
Her body screamed, but she walked to the bathroom, She turned the water on hot and stepped under the spray.
She scrubbed her thighs, her stomach, the place between her legs that was still swollen and tender.
But she didn’t cry.
She planned.
Step one: Don’t think about yesterday night.
Step two: Make enough money to destroy Richard.
Step three: Buy a Plan B.
The bastard didn’t even use a condom.
Step four: Email the Dubai client.
Begin the collection.
Earn the money.
Step five: Find a new apartment, move Ethan and disappear.
She shut the water off and toweled dry with her one thin towel, frayed at the edges.
She found her loosest dress, a gray cotton thing that hung off her shoulders and pulled it on.
She wrapped a scarf around her throat, hiding the bruises.
Her phone was on the crate beside the mattress.
She picked it up.
The screen was cracked, but it worked.
Forty-seven missed calls.
All from Richard Monroe.
Twelve text messages.
Where the hell are you?
Kowalski is furious.
You ruined everything.
You ungrateful little bitch.
I gave you everything and this is how you repay me?
You will come back to this house and apologize.
Tonight.
Do you know what you’ve cost me?
Ethan’s medication is no longer a priority.
Remember that.
She read that last one twice.
Her thumb hovered over the screen.
For a moment, the old fear flickered.
Ethan, alone, his heart monitor beeping, his file number 4469-B waiting for Richard’s signature to authorize or deny.
Then she pressed block.
The number vanished into digital silence.
It wouldn’t stop him forever.
He’d call from the house line, from Olivia’s phone, from a payphone if he had to.
She had chosen herself over his threats.
Her phone vibrated again.
She looked down.
Carl Cruz.
Aria’s fingers froze on the screen.
His name shouldn’t have hurt.
Instead, guilt rushed through her so violently that she nearly dropped the phone.
She couldn’t answer.
What would she even say?
I’m sorry.
Something happened to me.
I didn’t choose it.
None of the words felt big enough.
None of them could bridge the distance between who she had been when she kissed him last and who she was now standing in a borrowed dress, bruised, marked, changed by a night she couldn’t fully remember but couldn’t stop feeling.
She loved Carl.
And somehow, despite knowing she hadn’t chosen what happened, she couldn’t stop feeling as though she’d betrayed him.
The phone stopped ringing.
Aria stared at the dark screen, tears burning behind her eyes.
She wasn’t ready to hear his voice.
She wasn’t ready to hear the warmth in it, the trust, the version of herself he believed in the Aria who was whole, who was hers, who hadn’t been touched by anyone else.
So she turned the phone facedown.
And began planning how to save herself.
She walked to the pharmacy three blocks away, her thighs rubbing together, each step a dull ache.
The pharmacist was a young woman with kind eyes.
She didn’t ask questions when Aria slid the box across the counter.
She just rang it up and handed it back in a brown paper bag.
Aria took it in the alley behind the pharmacy, swallowing the pill with bottle water the kind lady offered her.
She leaned against the brick wall and waited for her heart to slow.
When she got back to the apartment, the sun was setting, painting the brick wall outside her window in shades of orange and violet.
She locked the door, two locks, chain, deadbolt and walked to her desk.
Her laptop was old, the hinge held together with electrical tape, but it booted.
She opened her email.
The Dubai client’s message sat at the top, three weeks old but still warm: We love the preliminary sketches, when can we see the full collection?
Aria’s fingers hovered over the keys.
This was the moment.
The concrete move.
The first step out of the Monroe shadow and into a life she chose for herself.
She typed:
Dear Mr.
Al-Rashid,
Thank you for your patience.
I’m ready to begin the collection.
Full sketches and fabric samples will be delivered within the month.
Best regards, Aria Monroe
She stared at the screen for a long moment, her heart hammering.
Then she pressed send.
The whoosh of the email leaving her outbox was the sweetest sound she had ever heard.
She closed the laptop and lay down on the mattress, pulling the thin blanket over her shoulders.
Her body throbbed, but her mind was clear.
For the first time in years, she felt the shape of a future she had built herself.
Ethan, she thought, staring at the ceiling.
I’ll come for you.
I promise.
Just let me get the money.
Let me get us both out.
She closed her eyes.
She drifted into sleep with the taste of hope on her tongue, not knowing that three floors below, a black car had just pulled to the curb, its engine idling, its windows dark.