Venn diagram heaven.
She signals left, the indicator ticking like impatience. The road curves toward the expensive part of town, where cars sleep in garages larger than flats and the pavements smell faintly of trust funds and freshly power-washed patio furniture. The air up here always smells expensive—cut grass and money—and it drags her back to childhood like a hook under the ribs.
She was raised on privilege. Gold-plated chaos. A Chelsea townhouse big enough for echoes. Holidays in Provence, winters in Verbier, summers on whichever yacht her parents were borrowingthat year. She grew up with tailors, tutors, and tantrums that ended with jewellery. Her parents believed in enrichment the way others believed in God.
Chris fit the mould beautifully.
Emma… did not.
Her phone buzzes; she ignores it.
Chris liked it up here, the city glittering below like a jewellery box. He’d stand with his hands in his pockets like some postcard of success — Eton boy turned corporate success, money pouring through his life like water through fingers. He was always the calm one, the glass of water. She was… not.
Their childhood swims up the way it always does when she needs a reason to keep going. Parents who collected beliefs like stamps — macrobiotic one month, apocalypse-prepping the next. Holidays that were “pilgrimages,” schools that were “experiments,” a house full of strangers and rules that changed when the candles did.
Chris learned to fold himself into the spaces. Emma wouldn’t fold for anyone.
She hits a roundabout too quickly, and the car complains. “Oh, hush,” she mutters, patting the dashboard. It’s one of her life’s unfortunate themes: she is always talking to things she shouldn’t and never quite saying the thing she should to the people who matter.
She checks the date on her phone out of compulsive habit.
Nineteen days left.
So little time.
Streetlights flicker across the windscreen like a film reel. She thinks of Tom again, his careful way with words. He’d looked… frightened. That pleased her more than it should; fear means he’ll move fast. Men like Tom only need one push, and then they push themselves. He’ll go back to the house. He’ll listen for cracks in the walls. He’ll get what she needs.
Her phone lights the car. The message reads:
Any progress?
She smiles without teeth and types:
Working on it.
She doesn’t owe anyone the truth; she owes herself results.
And yes, she wants her brother home safe.
But she also wants her freedom.
Sweet Tom is a step on that staircase.
Empathetic. Pliable.
Useful.
She presses harder on the accelerator, humming some soft, shapeless melody from childhood.
James is the door.
Pete is the lock.
Tom is the key.
And Emma — Emma is the hand that turns it.
Chapter 30
