“Hi, you've reached Lila Sinclair. I'm not available right now, but leave a message, and I'll get back to you soon!”
The sound of her voice, warm and familiar and forever frozen in time, shatters something inside me.
“Mom,” I whisper, pressing the phone against my ear like I can get closer to her through the static. “Mom, I don't... I don't know what to do.”
The tears come harder now, racking sobs that leave me curled on the floor beside the broken glass.
“Everything's falling apart. My job. My life. There's this man who's trying to destroy me, and I don't know how to stop him. And Kai... God, Mom, there's this guy, and I think I love him, but I'm so scared. I'm scared of needing him. I'm scared he'll see who I really am and leave.”
I'm rambling now, words spilling out that I've never said to anyone. Things I've barely admitted to myself.
“I miss you,” I choke out. “I miss you so much. I miss Dad. I miss Danny. I miss having someone who knew me before all of this. Before I became this person who's always pretending to be okay.”
The voicemail beeps. Time's up. I don't hang up. I just lie there, phone pressed to my cheek, pretending she's listening.
“I wish you could tell me what to do,” I whisper. “I wish you could tell me it's going to be okay.”
The silence is my only answer.
I don't know how long I stay on the floor. Long enough for my tears to dry. Long enough for the cold from the floorboards to seep into my bones.
Eventually, I pull myself up. My reflection in the bathroom mirror shows a disaster. Mascara streaked. Eyes swollen. Hair tangled from where I've been running my hands through it.
I splash water on my face. Once. Twice. Three times.
I force myself to look. Really look.
I think about everything I've survived. James, who spent years making me feel small. Losing my family in one terrible night. Moving to a new city with nothing but a suitcase and a stubborn refusal to give up.
I'm still here. Through all of it, I'm still here.
Miles Harrison is not going to be the thing that breaks me.
I grab my phone. Thumb hovers over Logan's name. Can I trust him? I barely know him. I'm only just learning to trust Kai, and that's taken everything I have.
I think about him at the hospital. The way he didn't tell Kai about the gossip. The way he said I was one of them. I hope he meant it.
I call before I can talk myself out of it.
His voice is alert despite the hour. “Sin? What's wrong? Is it Kai?”
“Kai's fine.” I take a breath. “I need advice. Professional advice. And I need you not to tell him about this.”
A pause. “Okay. Talk to me.”
So I do. I tell him everything. The dinner. Miles's accusations. My outburst. The HR complaint. I tell him about the weeks of whispers and innuendo, the way Miles has been systematically undermining me since the ELK account.
Logan listens without interrupting. When I finish, the silence stretches.
“First,” he says finally, “you need to document everything. Every comment, every incident, every witness. Dates and times if you can remember them.”
“I can do that.”
“Second, do you have anything in writing? Texts, emails, anything where Miles said something inappropriate?”
I think back. “Maybe. He's careful, but there might be something.”
“Find it. HR investigations live and die on documentation.”
