Chapter 2 No.2

The ceiling of the motel room was stained with a watermark shaped like a bruised lung. Elara stared at it, the pattern of the cheap polyester sheets scratching against her skin. For a moment, disoriented by the morning light filtering through thin curtains, she panicked. Where was the silk? Where was the silence of the penthouse?

Then she remembered. The gala. The note. The cab ride.

She sat up, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs. She was free.

She reached for the burner phone on the nightstand. She dialed a number she had memorized but had not dared to call in years.

"Hello?" The voice on the other end was groggy, male, and familiar.

"Harper," Elara said. Her voice shook.

There was a pause. Then a rustling sound, like someone sitting up quickly. "Elara? Is that you? Are you okay?"

"I did it," she whispered. "I left."

"Oh, thank God," Harper breathed out. "I thought... never mind. Is the safe house ready? I mean, my apartment. It's a mess, but it's yours."

"I'm coming," she said.

Across the city, in the master bedroom of the Sterling penthouse, Ethan woke up. He reached for his phone immediately. No missed calls. No texts.

He sat up, rubbing his temples. The hangover was a dull throb behind his eyes. "Stubborn," he muttered.

He dialed his personal assistant, Marcus.

"Track Elara's credit card," Ethan commanded, not bothering with a greeting. "See where she stayed last night. Probably the Plaza or the St. Regis."

"Right away, sir."

Ethan got out of bed and walked to the window. The city looked the same as always-grey, busy, indifferent. He felt a spike of irritation. She was making him late. She usually laid out his tie, poured his coffee, briefed him on the day's social obligations.

Now, he had to do it himself.

"Sir?" Marcus's voice came back on the line, hesitant.

"Which hotel is she at?"

"There... there hasn't been any activity on her cards, Mr. Sterling. The Black Card, the Gold Card, even the emergency debit. Nothing since yesterday afternoon."

Ethan frowned. "That's impossible. She can't book a hotel without a card."

"Maybe she's with a friend?"

"She doesn't have friends," Ethan said dismissively. "She has acquaintances. My friends' wives. And that cousin in Brooklyn, Harper, but she hasn't spoken to him since the wedding. She's too proud to go back to that life."

He hung up. A thought occurred to him. Cash. She must have been squirreling away cash from her allowance.

"Fine," he said to the empty room. "Play the hard way."

He logged into the banking app and froze every card linked to her name. Card Frozen. Card Frozen. Card Frozen.

"Let's see how long you last without access to the vault," he sneered.

Elara stood in the bathroom of Harper's small Brooklyn apartment. Harper, her cousin and only real confidant, was at work, leaving her a key under the mat.

She looked at herself in the mirror. Her hair, long, chestnut waves that Ethan loved to wrap around his fist, hung down to her waist. It was the hair of a socialite. High maintenance. Heavy.

She picked up the kitchen scissors Harper used to cut pizza.

She took a thick lock of hair near her face. Her hand trembled, just once.

Snip.

The sound was loud in the tiled room. The hair fell into the sink, a dark snake against the white porcelain.

She didn't stop. Snip. Snip. Snip.

Ten minutes later, the socialite was gone. In her place was a woman with a sharp, uneven bob that barely grazed her chin. She looked younger. Fiercer.

She washed the rest of the makeup off her face and put on a pair of thick-rimmed glasses she had kept from her college days.

She walked into the living room and unzipped the bottom compartment of her duffel bag. She pulled out three heavy books. Advanced Computational Biology. Algorithms in Genomic Sequencing. Python for Data Science.

She placed them on Harper's scratched coffee table. They looked like treasures.

Harper had left a battered laptop on the couch with a note: Clean slate.

Elara opened it. The screen glowed blue. She didn't log into social media. She typed in a URL she hadn't visited in six years.

University of Columbia - Graduate Admissions Portal.

She logged in using an old, dormant account. Her status still read: PhD Track - Offer Withdrawn (Voluntary).

She opened a new email draft.

To: Professor Alistair Finch

Subject: Inquiry regarding potential opening.

Her finger hovered over the 'Send' button. Fear, cold and slimy, coiled in her stomach. Finch was a legend. He had called her the "brightest mind of her generation" right before she told him she was quitting to get married. He had looked at her with such profound disappointment that it haunted her nightmares.

She closed her eyes. She saw Ethan laughing with Serena. She saw the empty jewelry pouch.

She clicked Send.

Ethan sat in a board meeting, his leg bouncing under the table.

"The Q3 projections are solid," Carter was saying, pointing at a graph.

Ethan's phone buzzed. A text from Serena.

Left an earring in your car last night. Oops. ;)

Ethan stared at the message. A week ago, this would have flattered him. Now, it just felt... cloying. He didn't reply.

He checked the shared bank account again. Zero withdrawals.

"Are you listening, Ethan?" Sebastian Kensington, a board member from a rival family, leaned forward. His eyes, dark and perceptive, drilled into Ethan. "You seem distracted. Trouble in paradise?"

"Everything is fine," Ethan snapped. "Just handling some logistics."

Sebastian smirked. "I heard Elara left early last night. Without you."

"She wasn't feeling well."

"Is that why she left her emeralds on the bedside table?" Sebastian asked softly.

Ethan froze. "How did you-"

"Servants talk, Ethan. Mrs. Higgins has a sister who works for my mother." Sebastian leaned back, tapping his pen. "Be careful. You might lose something you can't buy back."

Ethan's grip on his phone tightened until the metal creaked.

That evening, a storm rolled over Manhattan. Rain lashed against the floor-to-ceiling windows of the penthouse.

Ethan returned home to silence. He walked into the living room. On the center table, a vase of white lilies-Elara's favorites-drooped, their petals turning brown.

"Mrs. Higgins!" he shouted.

The housekeeper appeared, looking nervous.

"Why are these flowers dead?"

"Ms. Elara... she usually waters them herself, sir. Every morning. I didn't want to touch them."

Ethan stared at the dead flowers. He realized, with a jolt, that he didn't even know where the watering can was kept.

He pulled out his phone again. He opened the banking app. Still nothing.

"She has to eat," he whispered. "She has to sleep."

In Brooklyn, Elara sat on the floor with Harper, eating Pad Thai out of a cardboard carton.

"So," Harper said, chewing thoughtfully. "He froze the cards?"

"Within an hour of waking up," Elara said, taking a bite. It was spicy, greasy, and delicious.

"What's the plan for cash?"

Elara reached into her bag and pulled out a small USB drive. "I wasn't just planning parties for six years, Harper. I was coding."

Harper's eyes bugged out. "Crypto?"

"Algorithmic arbitrage," Elara corrected. "I set up a few bots on a remote cloud server five years ago. Low risk, high frequency. I just let the compound interest do the work. Ethan saw the server rental fees once, but I told him I was hosting a private Sims server." Elara plugged the USB into the laptop. A number popped up on the screen.

It wasn't a fortune. But it was enough. Enough for rent. Enough for tuition. Enough for freedom.

"You're a badass," Harper said, raising his beer.

Elara smiled. It was a small, tentative thing, but it was real.

Back in the penthouse, Ethan instructed the doorman over the intercom. "If she comes back, let her up. But tell me immediately."

"Yes, Mr. Sterling."

Ethan went to the closet. He looked at her side. The rows of designer dresses, the shoes, the bags. Thousands of dollars of merchandise. She had left it all.

He grabbed a dress, a red silk number he loved. He brought it to his nose, inhaling. It smelled like her shampoo. Lavender and vanilla.

He threw the dress on the floor.

"She's playing a game," he told himself, pouring a glass of scotch. "She wants me to chase her. She wants me to beg."

He took a sip, the liquid burning his throat.

"I won't," he vowed. "She'll come crawling back when the hunger sets in."

Thunder rumbled outside, shaking the glass walls of his fortress. His phone rang. He lunged for it, heart leaping.

Mother calling.

He let it ring. He looked at the empty bed, and for the first time, the vastness of the king-sized mattress felt terrifying.