I lie on my back, eyes still closed, letting the warmth of the morning sun spill over me. It presses through the windows and into my skin, soft and deceptive, like a promise that isn’t meant to be kept.
Instinct takes over.
I roll slightly, reaching for Emmy, to pull her against me, to feel her warmth, to anchor myself in the proof that she’s still here.
My eyes snap open.
My hand closes around nothing.
Cold sheets. Empty space.
The absence hits harder than any blow. My fingers curl uselessly into the mattress, my hand landing where she should be with a dull, final thud.
I exhale slowly, forcing myself to believe she’s simply wandered into the living room. Or out onto the balcony, chasing the morning the way she sometimes does, barefoot, quiet, wrapped in borrowed comfort. It’s an easy lie. A necessary one.
I reach for my phone.
The screen lights up, cool and unforgiving. I scroll absently through notifications until one stops me cold.
Security Alert: Lift activity detected.
The world narrows.
I sit up sharply, every sense snapping awake as the silence of the penthouse presses in on me. It’s too quiet. Not peaceful, vacant. The kind of quiet that follows a theft.
I’m on my feet in seconds, moving through the space with purpose. The living area is empty. No soft footsteps. No hum of life. Nothing.
My phone remains clenched in my hand as my gaze sweeps the room again, slower now, more deliberate, until it lands on the kitchen island.
A coffee cup.
Barely touched.
It sits abandoned among the scattered papers from the envelope, steam long gone, the sight of it tightening something in my chest I don’t bother to name. I cross the room quickly, my eyes scanning the documents, inventorying them out of instinct.
Then I see it.
The absence.
One page is missing.
The order.
I look around again, sharper this time, cataloguing details with ruthless precision. Her shoes are gone. Her handbag. She didn’t leave on impulse.
She left prepared.
She took the paper.
She saw everything.
Understanding settles in slowly, dangerously calm. Emmy knows what I am. What I do. The parts of me I never intended to place in her hands. My Little Heaven found the truth, the ugly, unforgivable truth, and she ran.
Dread coils in my chest.
Not rage.
Never rage.
