Chapter 5 No.5

The divorce papers were hidden inside a folder of sheet music for Giselle. It was a pathetic rebellion, a fantasy Sienna indulged in on her darkest days. She had never contacted a lawyer. She had no access to her trust fund; Julian had power of attorney due to her "medical incapacity."

But she needed to know.

Two days after the gallery incident, Julian was in D.C. for a lobbying trip. It was the first time he had left her alone in months. The security guards were still at the door, but they didn't follow her into the bathroom.

Sienna used a burner phone she had bought from the nanny next door for five hundred dollars cash-money she had stolen from Julian's wallet bill by bill over a year. She knew she would have to destroy it soon; it was a cheap, traceable thing, but it was all she had.

She dialed the number she had memorized from a billboard. Kensington & Associates.

"Kensington Law, how may I direct your call?"

"I... I need to speak to Nate Kensington," Sienna whispered, sitting on the edge of the bathtub, the water running to mask her voice.

"Mr. Kensington is a senior partner. He doesn't take unsolicited calls. Do you have a referral?"

"Tell him... tell him it's about the girl who broke her wing." It was a stupid code, something from their college days, ten years ago. She didn't even know if he would remember her. Nate Kensington had been the quiet, brooding scholarship student in the pre-law program while she was the heiress ballerina. They had barely spoken, but he had always looked at her with an intensity that unnerved her.

There was a long pause. Then a click.

"Sienna?"

His voice was deeper than she remembered. Rougher. It didn't have Julian's velvet smoothness. It sounded like gravel and reality.

"Nate," she breathed. "I can't talk long. I need help. I think... I think I'm trapped."

"Where are you?" The question was immediate. No 'how have you been', no pleasantries.

"Home. I can't leave. The guards..."

"Are you in immediate physical danger?"

"No. Yes. I don't know. My mind... Julian says I'm sick. But things are happening, Nate. Things that don't make sense."

"Listen to me closely," Nate said. His voice was a lifeline in the dark. "Do not eat anything he prepares personally. Do not sign anything. Can you get out for an hour? Any excuse?"

"Physical therapy," she said. "Thursday. 2 PM. The clinic on 5th."

"I'll be in the coffee shop next door. Wear a hat. Don't acknowledge me until I sit down."

"Nate... I have no money. He controls everything."

"I don't want your money, Sienna." There was a silence on the line, heavy with unspoken history. "I just want you to stay alive until Thursday."

The line went dead. Sienna crushed the cheap burner phone under her heel, wrapped the pieces in toilet paper, and flushed them down the toilet. Her hands were shaking. For the first time in three years, the shaking wasn't from fear. It was from adrenaline.