Chapter 3 No.3

Three days. Seventy-two hours of radio silence.

Ethan sat in his office, the leather chair feeling like a torture device. He stared at his phone. He had sent five texts.

Stop this.

It's not funny anymore.

I froze the cards. Call me if you want them unlocked.

Where are you?

Elara.

None of them had the "Read" indicator.

He couldn't take it anymore. He hit the call button for her primary number.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

"We're sorry, the number you have dialed is not in service."

Ethan froze. The phone slipped from his hand and clattered onto the mahogany desk.

Not in service.

She hadn't just ignored him. She had terminated the line.

A surge of fury, hot and blinding, rose in his chest. He stood up and swept a stack of files off his desk. They scattered across the floor like frightened birds.

"Fine!" he yelled at the empty office. "You want to disappear? Disappear!"

Elara was currently disappearing into the stacks of the New York Public Library. The internet at Harper's was spotty, and she needed bandwidth.

She was surrounded by journals. Nature. Cell. Science. She was reading everything Professor Finch had published in the last five years. Her brain, dormant for so long, felt like a rusted engine sputtering back to life. It hurt, but it was a good hurt.

She took notes in a spiral notebook, her handwriting cramping as she tried to keep up with her own thoughts.

Protein folding anomalies in CRISPR-Cas9 editing... The Sterling Sequence...

She paused. The Sterling Sequence. Ethan had donated the money for that lab. Her name wasn't on it. Just his. Even though she had anonymously patched the open-source kernel the lab used for their data modeling. She had done it from her "Sims server" late at night, ensuring the grant proposal data didn't collapse under its own weight.

She gritted her teeth and turned the page.

Ethan needed validation. He needed to feel like the winner. He drove to his country club in the Hamptons, even though it was a Tuesday.

He walked into the bar, expecting the usual reverent nods. Instead, he saw heads leaning together. Whispers.

Gavin, a hedge fund manager with too many teeth, clapped him on the shoulder. "Ethan! Heard you're a freeman. Bachelor life treating you well?"

Ethan forced a smile. It felt like stretching rubber. "Just a break, Gavin. Elara needed some... spiritual time. You know women."

"Right, right," Gavin winked. "My second wife did that. Cost me two million in the settlement."

Carter slid into the booth next to Ethan. He looked uneasy. He pulled out his phone.

"Bro, have you seen Instagram?"

"I don't check Instagram, Carter. I have a company to run."

"You should look." Carter turned the screen.

It was a search page for Elara's profile.

User Not Found.

"She blocked you," Carter said, his voice hushed. "And she deleted her account. Like, completely nuked it."

The table went silent. In their world, social media was currency. Deleting it was social suicide. Or a declaration of war.

Ethan felt the humiliation burn his ears. He gripped his scotch glass until his knuckles turned white. "She's dramatic," he spat. "She's trying to get a reaction."

"It's working," Gavin muttered into his drink.

Elara's laptop chimed. An email.

From: Department of Biological Sciences

Subject: Interview Invitation

Her heart stopped. It wasn't Finch.

Dear Ms. Vance,

Professor Finch is unavailable. However, Dr. Shang has an opening for a junior research assistant. Given the gap in your resume, you would need to start at the entry level. If you are interested, please come to Lab 4 tomorrow at 9 AM.

Junior research assistant. It was a demotion. She was qualified for PhD candidacy. This was grunt work. Washing beakers. Data entry.

She stared at the screen. Her pride warred with her reality.

She hit Reply.

I will be there.

That night, Ethan attended the Kensington Charity Auction. It was an event Elara loved. She had curated the catalog for it two years in a row. He went because he was convinced she would be there. She couldn't resist vintage jewelry.

He stood in the back, scanning the crowd. Every time he saw a slender back or chestnut hair, his heart jumped.

He tapped a woman on the shoulder. "Elara?"

The woman turned. She was older, with heavy makeup. "Excuse me?"

"Sorry," Ethan muttered, turning away.

The auctioneer began the bidding for Lot 45. A vintage sapphire necklace. Art Deco. Elara had circled it in the catalog weeks ago. She had said it reminded her of the ocean.

"Starting bid at fifty thousand."

"One hundred thousand!" Ethan shouted.

Heads turned.

"Two hundred!" someone else called.

"Five hundred thousand!" Ethan roared.

The room went dead silent. The necklace was worth maybe two hundred on a good day.

"Sold! To Mr. Sterling."

Ethan stood there, chest heaving. He thought, If I buy this, she has to come get it. She'll have to come home for this.

Serena appeared at his elbow. She was wearing a dress that was a little too tight, a little too revealing for the venue.

"Ethan!" She squealed, clutching his arm. "You bought it! For me?"

Ethan looked down at her. He looked at the necklace the assistant was boxing up. Sapphires. Deep, intelligent blue.

Serena's eyes were brown. Shallow.

"No," Ethan said coldly. "It's an investment."

Serena's smile faltered. She pulled back, her lower lip trembling. "But... I thought..."

"Don't think, Serena. Just look pretty."

He grabbed the velvet box and walked out, leaving her standing there.

Elara was standing in front of Harper's full-length mirror. She was wearing a thrifted blazer she had bought for five dollars and a pair of black slacks. She looked like a student.

"I can't do this," she whispered. "I've forgotten everything. The terminology. The protocols."

Harper walked in with two glasses of cheap wine. "You are Elara Vance. You won the National Bio-Olympiad with a fever of 102. You got this, genius."

He handed her the wine. She took a sip.

"Thanks, Harper."

"Just remember," he said. "You're not Mrs. Sterling anymore. You're just Elara."

Ethan drove past Le Bernardin. He slowed down. He saw a couple in the window, holding hands. The man was feeding the woman a bite of dessert.

He felt a physical blow to his gut. A pang of loss so sharp it nearly doubled him over.

He arrived at the penthouse. It was dark. He didn't turn on the lights.

He walked to the vanity table. He placed the sapphire necklace next to the empty velvet pouch.

"I bought it," he said to the silence. "Come and get it."

Nothing answered.

He sat on the edge of the bed and pulled up the security feed on his iPad. He rewound to three days ago.

He watched the grainy footage of the service elevator. Elara, wearing jeans and a hoodie, carrying a single duffel bag.

He zoomed in on her face. He expected to see tears. He expected to see fear.

Instead, her jaw was set. Her eyes were dry. She looked... determined.

For the first time, a sliver of ice pierced Ethan's arrogance. She didn't look like a woman running away. She looked like a woman marching to war.