But I want my sister safe more than I want to avoid bad memories.
I find Rhonda by the registers, sorting through a delivery clipboard with her usual harried efficiency.
"I need to leave early." The words come out steadier than I feel. "Family emergency."
She looks up, her eyes flicking to my cheek, to the bruise I know is showing through the concealer now. For a moment, something almost human crosses her face.
"Go," she says. "Delia can cover."
I don't waste time thanking her. I grab my bag from the break room, my hands shaking as I count the cash in my wallet. Forty-three dollars. The last of what I have until payday, which isn't for another week.
The drive to Scarlet Thorn takes twenty minutes through afternoon traffic. The cab smells like artificial pine and old cigarettes, and the driver doesn't speak, which suits me fine. I watch Chicago slide past the window, all glass and steel and indifferent beauty, and I try not to think about what I'm doing. Try not to acknowledge how desperate I've become.
The cab drops me off in front of the Redthorne Holdings building. Glass and steel rise into the gray sky, sleek and modern, the kind of architecture that speaks of money and power. Somewhere above me, seven floors above the business offices where men in suits pretend to be legitimate, Scarlet Thorn waits. I just have to be brave enough to walk through that lobby and take the elevator up.
The last time I stood here Jonah was beside me. Jonah with his easy smile and his empty promises and his particular talent for making me feel like I was enough until suddenly, violently, I wasn't.
Two years of my life. Two years of waiting for him, of believing we were building something, of holding onto my virginity because I wanted it to mean something when I finally gave it away.
The flood of memories crowd my brain and cause my heart to quiver with pain.
Frigid,he called me, when he finally got tired of waiting. When he found someone else who wouldn't make him wait.No man would wait forever. This is your fault.
My fault for not sleeping with him. My fault for wanting to wait. My fault for having boundaries that inconvenienced his ego.
The memory rises like bile in my throat. I push it down where it can't hurt me, into the dark space where I keep all the things I can't afford to feel.
I have bigger problems than a man who blamed me for his own betrayal.
The evening air is cold against my bruised face, the wind carrying the first hints of the rain those clouds promised. I wrap my arms around myself and stare up at the building where wishes supposedly come true. The windows are dark mirrors, reflecting the gray sky, revealing nothing of what waits inside.
I don't believe in fairy tales anymore. I stopped believing the night my father died. I stopped believing when my mother retreated into herself and never fully came back, becoming a ghost in her own life. I stopped believing when Jonah looked me in the eye and told me I was broken because I wouldn't let him take what he wanted.
But I believe in Gemma. I believe in protecting her, whatever it takes. Whatever it costs.
I believe that I would pay any price to keep Victor Kedrov's hands off my sister.
My heart pounds against my ribs as I take a step forward, then another. I don't believe in fairy tales.
But I'm desperate enough to try.
Two
Katriana
The glass doors of Redthorne Holdings loom before me like the entrance to another dimension.
I stand on the sidewalk with my heart hammering against my ribs, watching men in thousand-dollar suits breeze through those doors like they own the world. Which, I suppose, they do. At least their version of it. A version where coffee makers don't die mid-brew and landlords don't threaten eviction and monsters don't show up at six in the morning to wrap their hands around your throat.
My burgundy polo with the Stacked Pages logo feels like a neon sign announcing that I don't belong here. I should have gone home first. Changed into something that doesn't scream "I shelve books for a living and can barely afford ramen." But time is a luxury I don't have, and every minute I waste is another minute closer to Victor's deadline.
One week. Seven days. One hundred and sixty-eight hours to produce an impossible sum or watch my sister disappear into a nightmare I can't even bring myself to imagine.
I force my feet to move.
The doorman sees me coming. I watch his eyes track my approach, watch them catalogue my scuffed shoes and my work uniform and the messy ponytail that was neat six hours ago before my life fell apart. Again. His hand moves toward the door, and I brace myself for the rejection that's surely coming.
But then he pulls the door open and gestures me inside with the same practiced smile he probably gives everyone.
