Chapter 115 The creative floor was dark except for the weekend lighting, low amber strips along the baseboards that did nothing to dispel the shadows pooling between the empty desks. Martin walked through it slowly, his shoes no longer sounding like gunshots now that the marble had given way to

Chapter 114 The rain began at dawn, a steady, gray drizzle that smeared the city skyline and turned the floor-to-ceiling windows of Martin’s penthouse into a blur of wet asphalt. It was Saturday. By noon, the apartment was no longer his own. It had been thoroughly invaded by the machinery

Chapter 113 Fiona was not looking for it. That was the thing she would keep coming back to afterward, in the way you returned to the small details of moments that had hit you harder than you expected. She had not been scrolling for news about Martin. She had not

Chapter 112 Tanya had been having a reasonable morning. That was the thing she would come back to later, in the quiet of her apartment with a glass of wine she did not particularly want and the city doing its indifferent evening thing outside her window. She had been having

Chapter 111 She got up slowly, moving through her usual morning routine with deliberate care. She made ginger tea, toasted bread with a thin spread of avocado, and sat at the small kitchen counter eating in silence. The diamond ring on her finger caught the light whenever she lifted her

Chapter 110 They just stared at each other thinking of what just happened. The cove continued its quiet rhythm behind them, waves lapping gently against the retaining wall, a gull crying somewhere overhead, but the world between Fiona and Martin had narrowed to the small space of breath and silence

Chapter 109 The message came on a in morning, while Fiona was eating toast at her kitchen counter and trying not to think too hard about the week ahead. It was not a long message. Martin had never been a man who used more words than necessary. “I’d like to

Chapter 108 Elara had made the soup without being asked. That was how Fiona knew her mother had been worried. Not the kind of worry that announced itself, not the hand-wringing, not the pointed questions Elara’s worry was always quiet and practical, showing up as food on the stove and

Chapter 107 Katherine rose from her desk and walked the short distance down the corridor to Martin’s office, her heels measured and unhurried against the polished floor, though her mind was moving considerably faster than her pace suggested. His assistant glanced up as she approached, opened her mouth to announce

Chapter 106 Nobody at Voss was pretending to work anymore. They were only pretending to pretend. The marketing floor had the particular hush of an office holding its breath. Keyboards clicked too carefully. Conversations died the moment a director walked past, then started up again in lowered voices the second