Silence had become her alarm system.
Her phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
A text appeared.
Hope you don’t mind. I got your number from the restaurant. This is Graham Blackwood. I wanted to thank you for being kind to my mother tonight. She hasn’t stopped talking about you.
Lena’s blood cooled.
He hadn’t asked.
Of course he hadn’t.
Men like Graham didn’t request permission. They assumed the world was built to hand them things.
Her fingers hovered over the keyboard. She typed, deleted. Typed again, deleted again. Finally, she turned the phone off like it was a live wire.
Then she did the thing she’d promised herself she wouldn’t do anymore.
She opened her laptop.
The old one, the relic from her previous life, the one she’d hidden from creditors and from herself.
Her hands trembled as she typed a name she hadn’t spoken aloud in two years:
Evan Park.
That had been his “American” name. He’d chosen it like a costume: easy, likable, harmless.
His real name sat beneath it in her mind like a knife.
She searched anyway.
And the headline that popped up made her stomach drop so hard she tasted metal.
PINNACLE STRATEGY GROUP ANNOUNCES MERGER TALKS WITH BLACKWOOD HOLDINGS.
Graham Blackwood.
Pinnacle.
The company that had been hers.
Her lungs forgot how to work.
This was not coincidence. Not at this scale.
The room felt suddenly smaller, walls inching closer, as if the city itself were leaning in to watch her panic.
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