“Flight’s at six a.m.,” Lila says, already on my laptop, already booking herself into my life. “No checked bags. Resort car at noon. Cover stories and social captions queued. You’re in white linen, obviously. I’ll be in olive. I locked a luxury activewear sponsor—yoga outfits that highlight your best angles. Also secured a local videographer for b-roll so Blake can pretend to be objective.”
Blake snorts. “I’m a documentarian, not a hostage.”
“Then document,” Lila says, sugary. “I’ll send the call sheet.”
I watch them spar and feel the old steadiness hum in my bones. This is what I’m built for—moving pieces until the picture looks like I designed it in my head. Luck is what people call the work you don’t show them. I think of the Daughters of Persephone journal that’s currently tucked into my carryon. A little light airport reading. The queens of darkness, keepers ofthe secrets of women. How I’ve been chosen to carry the legacy forward.
“I think my favorite part,” I say, sliding into my coat, “is the opening circle.”
Blake glances up. “You already wrote it?”
“I don’t write,” I say. “I improvise. I walk barefoot onto that deck and make forty people feel like I crawled into their chests with a candle. I’ll say you survived like it’s a spell. Then I’ll say now I’ll teach you how to live.”
“And then?” Lila asks, fascinated.
“And then I take their phones,” I say. “Digital detox. Safety. Presence. Privacy.”
Blake smiles, quick and sharp. “Control.”
“Curation,” I correct. “Words matter.”
“Do the sponsors know?” he asks. “No live content from attendees?”
“They’ll get what I give them,” I say. “Scarcity drives demand.”
Lila’s already typing. “I’ll draft the waiver. They’ll sign anything to be near you.”
Sunlight knifes across the glass, catching the city and holding it hostage for one impossible minute. I stare because I like watching beautiful things when they don’t know I’m watching. It makes us even.
“She could still ruin you—posthumously,” Blake says, and something flickers: bathwater, bubbles, Harper sinking.
“She could,” I allow. “But the timing is wrong, and the world loves a neat story.”
He studies me. “And you?”
I smile. “I don’t need likes. I need obedience.”
Lila’s eyes glitter. “God, you’re intoxicating.”
“I’m practical,” I say. “That’s rarer.”
My phone buzzes. Unknown number. I answer without hello.
A breath. Then a woman’s voice, low and pleased. “You’re almost there.”
“Where’s there?” I ask.
“Dead,” she says.
Lila mouths, Who is it? hovering with a glass of wine she didn’t ask if I want.
I smile at the glass, at Lila, at the city, at the voice that sounds like a cliff edge in fog.
“If you’re who I think you are,” I say into the phone, “you missed your chance to stop me.”
“I didn’t call to stop you,” she says. “I called to remind you to wear flats on the deck. Wet wood is unforgiving. Deadly, even.” A pause. “You have a delivery.”
The line clicks dead.
