Chapter 1
Juliet
The leather strap of the large tote bit into my collarbone as I swept through the penthouse one final time. My ballet flats made no sound against the Carrara marble, a habit cultivated through years of learning how to disappear in plain sight. The scent of his cologne still lingered near the wet bar—Dior and cruelty masquerading as deliciousness.
Three white buttons glared up at me from the dressing room floor. My fingers twitched toward them before curling into fists. Let him find those. Let him wonder which of his thirty-seven custom shirts had flipped custom studs across his precious Italian tile.
The walk-in closet exhaled chilled air when I yanked open the door. Rows of silk whispered as I reached past them, my forearm brushing against a gown worth more than most people’s cars. The twill blend of my practical gray slacks rubbed against my thighs as I knelt, safety pin pricking my hip where I’d altered the waistband myself last night.
“Passport,” I muttered, fingertips finding the false back of the shoe rack. The embossed gold letters of my new name felt like braille under my thumb. “Julia Marie Harris.” A bland American name, close enough to my own for me to remember, perfect for a woman who needed to disappear.
The kitchen timer I’d set dinged from the counter. Seventeen minutes until the doorman’s shift change. My reflection in the Sub-Zero refrigerator showed a stranger. Dark hair pulled into a ball cap, honey blonde roots betraying my natural color beneath the black dye. I’d practiced the Texas accent for months between murmuring “y’all” into bathroom mirrors. I knew they’d never buy that, so I’d settled on a Chicago background. Midwest kids go to Columbia too.
Eight thousand dollars in twenties formed a brick inside the Ziploc bag taped behind the ice maker. My thumbnail split the Scotch tape cleanly, a skill honed by removing price tags from thrift store blouses before smuggling them with department store perfume. The bills smelled of mint and paranoia.
Fourteen months. Twenty-eight monthly transfers from grocery funds to a secret local bank account. Month in and month out of watching him sign corporate checks with his Montblanc, learning which oversight gaps even sharp accountants might miss. Today, that stolen knowledge would carry me halfway across the country in a bus seat sticky with other people’s escape attempts.
The Louis Vuitton tote at the foot of our bed yawned open. His mother’s wedding gift, now held my beautiful lingerie, the only current clothing I truly feel comfortable taking. Nobody would see it. I also packed a few sweaters to wear against Amarillo’s chilly August nights. I grabbed my sketchbooks as well. One that had blank pages waiting to be filled and the last two I’d finished. He’d broken all my charcoal pencils and chalks so that was fewer things to pack. I’d find an art store when I settled.
A strand of pearls slithered from its velvet coffin as I slammed the jewelry armoire shut. They pooled on the floor like a broken smile. My left earlobe throbbed with the memory of when he’d torn out a diamond stud last Christmas. “You want to look cheap?” he’d hissed, blood blooming on my collar. “I’ll let you explain the hospital bill to your father.” As though he’d take me to the hospital.
The burner phone vibrated against my sternum, tucked in the sports bra compressing breasts he’d called too large for my slight frame. One new email from Baucaum Iron Valor Custom Cycles verifying my arrival.
Seventeen hundred miles southwest, and thirty-nine long hours until I’d be free. A grease-stained office would become my sanctuary. I’d balance ledgers for men who reeked of motor oil instead of ambition, track parts inventories instead of lies. When they asked why a Chicago number cruncher wanted to hide in the Texas panhandle, I’d tell them I’d recently lost my fiancé and wanted a new start. Not entirely a lie.
The wall safe behind the Rothko painting sighed open at my third attempt. His birthday, our anniversary, his golf handicap—all combinations I’d tried over the years. Turned out the bastard used his first yacht’s length: 62.37. The stack of hundreds left a paper cut on my index finger. I licked iron from my skin as pulled it free from its once secure hiding place. So many ill-gotten dollars, now in my hands.
My palms flattened against the cool glass of the living room windows. Forty-three floors below, yellow cabs swarmed like angry hornets. In just under two days, I’d be squinting at prairie grass through Greyhound windows, the horizon stretched taut as a drumhead. Texas wouldn’t care about my trust fund pedigree or the way Park Avenue hostesses used to compliment my “exotic” bone structure.
The thermostat read 68°—always 68°, because he liked seeing goosebumps rise on bare flesh. I cranked it to 80° before leaving, a petty rebellion that would cost him $378 in excess utilities. Small victories.
Three burner phones lay disassembled on the Carrara countertop. My thumbnail pried open the fourth’s battery compartment, the plastic casing still warm from four hours tucked in my pocket during final packing. Messages blinked in green text bubbles—code phrases assembled over fourteen months of grocerystore messages hiding behind produce stands and workout room Wi-Fi.
Margarita mix recipe?
Confirmed. Package arrives Thursday.
Don’t forget to salt the rim of the glass!
I deleted each thread with surgical precision. The SIM card snapped between my molars, bitter silicone coating my tongue. When the last device joined its siblings in the trash chute, I scrubbed my hands raw under scalding water. Steamed mirrors couldn’t fog away the paranoia itching beneath my collarbones. I didn’t want Harrison finding out my source of new ID anymore than I wanted her strange Bratva father knowing she helped me. Erase every trace of our friendship. Every trail of our interactions.
I stared at the leather duffel at the foot of the bed for the eighteenth time that hour, my stomach twisting like one of Harrison’s cursed neckties. Early afternoon sun bled through floor-to-ceiling windows, painting our penthouse in guilty pinks. Our penthouse. Not for much longer.
The burner phone in my back pocket buzzed—three short bursts, our old college code.
“Lucia,” I breathed, thumb hovering over accept. Letting her in might crack this fragile resolve.
I answered anyway.
“Kotyonok,” came the smoky laugh I’d missed like oxygen, syllables rounder than Midwestern vowels ought to be after twelve years stateside. “Tell me you burned that hideous cashmere scarf he bought you.”
My knuckle flew to my mouth, stifling something between a sob and a snort. “You’re checking on scarves? Not say… whether Interpol’s raiding JFK?”
“Pfah! Passport’s cleaner than my cousin’s vodka still! Julia Marie Harris now has six Whole Foods coupons and two parking tickets in Chicago.” A lighter clicked on her end. “But you’ll stilldress like someone who owns art galleries, da? Terrible camouflage.”
The sound of her exhale curled warm in my ear despite the miles between New York and whatever Bratva-owned warehouse she was holed up in this week. I traced the forged birth certificate peeking from my bag—thick cardstock that smelled faintly of her father’s cigars and promises kept in blood oaths rather than ink.
“Promise me something,” she said suddenly serious, those three words laced with steel wool grit that scrubbed away college sisterhood. “When he comes looking—and moy dorogoy, that man doesn’t like to lose. You vanish like smoke through his fingers.” Paper rustled; maps unfolded perhaps, or money changing hands nearby. “Use every drop I taught you.”
