Chapter 1

The rain that had been pouring all day, a sad, gray sheet over Emily' s funeral, had finally stopped. I stood outside the gleaming steel and glass tower, the key card feeling heavy and wrong in my hand. This place, Mark' s penthouse, had never felt like home, but now it felt like a tomb. My black dress was still damp, clinging to my skin, and a chill had settled deep into my bones that had nothing to do with the weather.

I just buried my sister. My little sister, Emily.

The private elevator opened directly into the living room. The first thing that hit me wasn't the sterile, scentless air Mark insisted on, but the sound of light, easy laughter.

It felt like a physical blow.

Mark was standing by the floor-to-ceiling windows, a glass of amber liquid in his hand. He wasn't alone. A man I didn't recognize, older, with a kind face, was with him. They were looking out at the glittering city lights, their conversation relaxed and friendly.

The scene was so normal, so peaceful, it made my skin crawl. It was a world away from the cold, damp earth I had just left, the place where my sister now lay forever.

Mark turned as he heard the elevator doors slide shut. His smile, the one he used for business partners and magazine covers, froze on his face. It didn't disappear, it just changed, hardening into something else.

His eyes swept over me, from my damp hair to my scuffed shoes. Disgust flickered across his features. He didn't ask how I was. He didn't ask about the funeral.

"Sarah. What are you doing? You didn't follow protocol."

His voice was low and tight, laced with an anger that was all for me. The friendly man beside him looked uncomfortable, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

"You're supposed to decontaminate in the lobby unit before coming up. You know the rules. You're bringing the filth of the outside world in here."

He took a deliberate step back from me, as if I were carrying a plague. The older man, bless his heart, tried to intervene.

"Mark, son, give the girl a break. She's just been through a terrible ordeal."

Mark' s gaze didn't leave my face. "Dr. Chen, with all due respect, standards are what keep us safe. She knows this better than anyone, being a nurse."

He said the word 'nurse' like it was an insult.

My own personal assistant, Lisa Chen, materialized from the hallway as if summoned. She wore a crisp, white pantsuit and a look of practiced sympathy that didn't reach her eyes. She was Dr. Chen's daughter.

"Mark, I can handle this," she said, her voice smooth as silk. "Sarah, you look exhausted. Why don't you go down to the sanitation suite? I'll have your things brought down."

She was talking to me like I was a contaminated specimen, a problem to be managed. She was reinforcing Mark' s obsession, validating his cruelty under the guise of helping.

I just stood there, mute. The grief was a heavy blanket, muffling my ability to speak, to fight back. All I could think about was Emily' s small, pale face in the coffin.

Mark' s patience snapped. He strode over to me, his movements sharp and aggressive. He didn't touch me. He never touched me when he thought I was "contaminated." Instead, he grabbed the small, worn leather purse I was clutching, the one Emily had given me for my birthday years ago.

"This is unacceptable," he hissed, holding the purse between his thumb and forefinger as if it were a dead rat. He marched to the trash chute built into the wall, a high-tech monstrosity for his high-tech apartment, and dropped it in. The metal flap slid shut with a quiet, final click.

"Now go," he commanded, his voice devoid of any warmth. "Get out. And don't come back up until you're clean."

His words hit me, but what broke me was what I saw next. As he turned back to his guest, he placed a reassuring hand on Dr. Chen's shoulder. He hadn't hesitated. He hadn't wiped his hand. He hadn't recoiled.

The rules, his rigid, suffocating rules, only applied to me. They didn't apply to Lisa's family. They didn't apply to him.

It was suddenly so clear. The years of me scrubbing my skin raw in the "decontamination suite," changing into pre-approved clothes, leaving my personal belongings downstairs, all of it wasn't about his obsession with cleanliness. It was about control. It was about his lack of love for me.

Love and the absence of love, it's in the details. It was in the way he refused to let my dying sister come here, but welcomed Lisa's family. It was in the way he saw me, after burying my sister, not as a grieving fiancée, but as a source of contamination.

Something inside me, something that had been slowly dying for years, finally shattered.

I didn't say a word. I didn't cry. I simply turned around, pressed the button for the elevator, and when the doors opened, I stepped inside.

As the doors slid shut, I saw him laughing with Dr. Chen again, Lisa standing beside him, a small, triumphant smile on her face.

The elevator descended. I didn't go to the sanitation suite. I walked out of the lobby, out of the building, and into the cold night air. I didn't look back. I was finally clean.

I walked to my car, got in, and started driving. I didn't know where I was going. But I knew I was never going back. I started mentally packing a bag, not a physical one, but a list of things I needed to take from that apartment. My nursing degree. My mother's old photos. The few pieces of jewelry that were mine before I met him.

He could keep the engagement ring. He could keep the penthouse. He could keep his sterile, loveless world. I was done. Whatever he offered, whatever he threatened, it didn't matter anymore. The price was too high. The price had been my sister.