Chapter 2 2

The elevator doors slid open directly into the penthouse living room.

Grayson walked in first, tearing at the knot of his tie. He threw his jacket onto the floor without looking back. The air in the apartment was conditioned to a sterile chill, smelling of nothing but ozone and money.

Anna followed him in. She bent down and picked up his jacket. She smoothed the fabric, her movements practiced and quiet. She walked to the closet, hung it up, and returned to the main room.

Grayson was standing by the floor-to-ceiling windows, looking out at the city. The lights of Manhattan sprawled below them, a galaxy of electric stars.

"You took six minutes," he said. He didn't turn around.

Anna stopped in the middle of the room. "There was a line."

"There is never a line at The Vault," Grayson said. He turned slowly. His face was flushed with alcohol and a simmering aggression that had been building all night. "What were you doing in there? Crying over that dead loser?"

Anna felt a muscle in her jaw twitch. She forced it to relax. "I was fixing my makeup."

"You're lying," he said. He walked toward the bar cart. "You always lie when you're scared."

He poured himself another drink. He didn't offer her one. He didn't need to. The smell of the scotch from earlier was still clinging to her breath, making her nauseous.

"I'm tired, Grayson," she said softly. "Can I go to bed?"

"You go to bed when I say you go to bed," he snapped.

He downed the drink in one swallow. He slammed the glass down on the marble counter. The sound echoed in the large, empty room.

He looked at her with disgust. "Look at you. You stand there like a statue. Do you feel anything? Or did the asylum strip it all out of you?"

He wanted a reaction. He fed on it. If she cried, he won. If she fought back, he won.

Anna walked over to the table where a half-empty bottle of wine sat from the previous night. She picked it up. She didn't look at him. She lifted the bottle to her lips and took a long, jagged swallow.

Red wine spilled down her chin, staining her white blouse.

She lowered the bottle and looked at him. Her eyes were dead.

"Is that better?" she asked.

Grayson stared at her. His chest heaved. He hated this. He hated when she acted broken in a way he hadn't orchestrated. It made him feel like he was losing control of the narrative.

He grabbed a heavy crystal tumbler from the bar.

"Stop it!" he roared.

He hurled the glass across the room.

It wasn't aimed at her, not directly. It smashed against the wall just to her left.

Crash.

Shards of crystal exploded outward.

Anna didn't flinch. She didn't blink. She just stood there, the wine bottle dangling from her hand, as a piece of glass sliced across her cheekbone.

A thin line of red appeared on her pale skin. It welled up and began to trickle down, mixing with the wine stain on her chin.

The room went silent.

Grayson breathed heavily, his hands clenched into fists. He looked at the blood. His anger seemed to evaporate, replaced by a twisted kind of fascination.

He walked over to her. The crunch of glass under his dress shoes was the only sound.

He reached out and cupped her face. His thumb brushed over the cut, smearing the blood.

"You're bleeding," he whispered.

"I know," Anna said. Her voice was devoid of inflection.

"You look ugly like this," he said, tilting her head to the side to inspect the damage. "Like a broken doll."

"I'm sorry," she said automatically. It was a reflex. Apologize to survive.

Grayson sighed. He dropped his hand. "Go clean yourself up. You're making a mess of the floor."

He turned his back on her and walked to the sofa. He picked up the remote and turned on the television. Bloomberg News filled the silence.

Anna turned and walked to the bathroom. She closed the door and locked it.

She leaned over the sink. She looked at the cut. It wasn't deep, but it was long. It would scar if she wasn't careful.

She didn't reach for the first aid kit. She just stared at the blood. It was bright red. It was real. It was the only thing in this apartment that felt real.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket.

She pulled it out. It was a secure message on an encrypted app.

FBI Contact: We need more on the Jaylene Horne connection. The ledger mentions a shell company under her name.

Anna stared at the screen. Jaylene Horne. The PR crisis manager. The woman who was slowly erasing Anna from the narrative.

She typed back quickly.

Anna: Working on it. He's volatile tonight.

She put the phone away. She washed the blood off her face with cold water. She put a small adhesive strip over the cut.

When she walked back out, Grayson was on the phone. His back was to her.

"She's fine," he was saying. "She's just... fragile. No, I haven't kicked her out. She's a consultant, technically. I keep her around out of pity. Her father would want that."

Anna stood in the doorway. The word hung in the air.

Consultant.

Not daughter. Not lover. Not even friend. A consultant. A line item on a budget. A tax write-off.

She looked down at the floor. The shards of crystal were scattered across the expensive rug.

She knelt down. She began to pick them up, piece by piece.

A sharp edge bit into her thumb. She watched a bead of blood form.

She didn't feel the pain. She felt something else. A cold, hard resolve settling in her chest like a stone.

She would find the shell company. She would find Jaylene Horne's secrets. And she would use every shard of this shattered life to cut Grayson Warren until he bled out.