Chapter 5 5

The knocking continued. Not aggressive, not threatening-persistent, the rhythm of people who had nowhere else to be, who were being paid by the hour to wait her out. Alena could hear them through the door, trading theories, checking phones, occasionally calling her name with the false sympathy of professionals who had done this before.

She didn't answer. She sat on the floor of the entryway, her knees drawn up, her phone clutched in both hands like a talisman. The screen had gone dark, conserving battery, and she didn't dare wake it. The smart TV had returned to black, its message delivered, its purpose served.

The landline rang. The sound was shocking in the silence, an antique bell tone she'd selected because it reminded her of her grandmother's house in Ohio. She crawled toward it, her ankle throbbing, her palms stinging from the glass she'd crawled through.

"Hello?"

"Ms. Gordon." M. Blackwood's voice, filtered through digital compression, stripped of all human texture. "I trust you're enjoying your evening."

"How did you get this number?"

"I have all your numbers. I have your parents' numbers. Your sister's. Your college roommate who still forwards you chain emails." A pause, the sound of papers shuffling. "Shall I read you the address in Columbus? It's a lovely street. Very suburban. Very vulnerable to media attention."

Alena's free hand found the wall, her fingers pressing into the plaster. "What do you want?"

"Compliance. The NDA supplement is on your kitchen island. Sign it. Initial each page. The courier will collect it in thirty minutes."

"And if I don't?"

"The gentlemen outside your door are the advance team. Tomorrow, there will be more. At your office. At your parents' home. At the hospital where your father receives his dialysis treatments." Blackwood's voice dropped, intimate, almost kind. "Your mother still volunteers at the library, doesn't she? Tuesdays and Thursdays? Imagine her face on the cover of Us Weekly. 'Mother of Kane Moody's Obsessed Ex Speaks Out.'"

Alena closed her eyes. She saw her mother, sixty-three years old, her hands already trembling from the early Parkinson's she refused to acknowledge, her kindness worn like armor against a world that had never been kind to her.

"I'll sign," she whispered.

"Excellent. The photographers will depart in five minutes. The power will return in ten." Blackwood's voice hardened. "But Ms. Gordon? This is your only warning. The next time you consider speaking to the press, or the police, or anyone-we won't be so gentle."

The line went dead.

Alena sat in darkness, counting seconds. At four minutes and thirty-seven seconds, she heard movement in the hallway, the shuffle of equipment, the diminishing murmur of disappointed predators. At nine minutes and twelve seconds, the lights returned, harsh and sudden, making her flinch.

The TV displayed its default screensaver, rotating images of landscapes she'd never visited.

She walked to the kitchen island. The document was there, pages stapled in the corner, her name pre-printed in twelve-point font. She didn't read it. She couldn't have processed the words if she'd tried. She signed where the tabs indicated, her signature deteriorating from its usual careful script to something frantic and illegible by the final page.

The courier arrived at 9:47 PM. He wore no uniform, offered no identification, simply took the envelope and left.

Alena stood in the restored light of her apartment and felt nothing. The adrenaline had burned through her, leaving a hollow space where her anger had been. She walked to the bathroom, turned on the shower, and stood under water hot enough to turn her skin pink. She scrubbed her face, her hands, the places where Blackwood's voice still seemed to cling.

The mirror was fogged when she stepped out. She wiped it with her palm, watching her reflection emerge in fragments. Eyes swollen. Cheeks flushed. The light chestnut hair that Kane had already condemned, already marked for erasure.

She reached for her moisturizer, the expensive cream he bought by the case, and stopped.

The vent above the mirror. The slatted metal cover. Something caught the light, something that shouldn't be there, a pinpoint reflection that didn't match the brushed nickel finish.

She dragged the vanity stool over, climbed up, her bare feet cold on the marble. Close enough to touch, close enough to see: a lens, no larger than a grain of rice, embedded in the decorative scrollwork where no one would think to look.

Her hand hovered near it, trembling. She thought of smashing it, of screaming into it, of giving whoever watched the show they clearly wanted.

Instead, she climbed down. She walked to the bedroom, her movements careful, controlled, performing normalcy for an audience she couldn't see. She pulled the suitcase from beneath the bed, the one she'd packed for a vacation they'd never taken, and she began to fill it with clothes that were hers, truly hers, purchased with her own salary before she'd learned to accept his gifts like tribute.

She didn't look at the vent. She didn't acknowledge the cameras she now knew were everywhere, in everything, watching her breathe and sleep and cry in the shower where the water was supposed to hide the sound.

She packed methodically, folding each item with precision, creating the illusion of a woman preparing for a business trip, a family emergency, any of the lies she would need to tell. When the suitcase was full, she zipped it closed and slid it back under the bed, still within view of the bedroom's own blind spots, its own invisible eyes.

Then she lay down on top of the covers, fully dressed, and stared at the ceiling until morning came.