Deep End

Frederick was gone before she could say goodbye.

The gurney wheeled out quietly, swallowed by steel doors and sterile walls. There were no dramatic last looks, no parting words whispered in the hall. Just the sound of rolling wheels and monitors fading into a silence Amelia had never quite known before. She stood still, arms hanging at her sides, trying not to look at the empty space he’d left behind.

Luke had already left. She had told him what to do, what to secure, and where to run damage control. He had listened. Not because she outranked him, but because in that moment, she was the only one who wasn’t breaking.

Now, there was only her.

Two black SUVs waited outside the hospital. Security followed like shadows, neither speaking nor asking questions. They moved as one, like this had all been rehearsed. And maybe it had.

The ride to her apartment was quiet. She watched the city slide past, grey and thin, like the sky hadn’t made up its mind about rain. Every red light felt longer than it should. Every idle pedestrian felt like a pair of eyes. When they pulled up to her building, one guard stepped out first to scan the entrance, then waved her forward.

Her apartment looked untouched. That was what unsettled her the most.

The couch pillow still leaned against the armrest where she’d left it. Her coffee mug waited in the sink. The blinds were drawn halfway, the way she always left them when she rushed out in the morning. It looked like a life still in motion, paused rather than abandoned.

She packed with urgency but not panic. She folded clothes she barely looked at. Threw toiletries into a side bag. Found Frederick’s spare tie under the coffee table and shoved it into a pocket without thinking. She was almost done when she reached into the cabinet above the fridge.

Her fingers found a folder.

She had put it there days ago, hidden under expired medical records and tax files. It was a sealed envelope marked with her name and an old crest she no longer claimed. Inside were copies of old licenses, identity backups, and the kind of documents you only kept when you didn’t trust the future.

She took the whole thing and buried it at the bottom of her bag.

The guards waited at the door as she zipped everything closed. She took one last glance around. The place looked the same, but it didn’t feel like hers anymore.

Halfway down the hall, she heard it.

A soft click behind her.

She turned sharply.

The apartment door had shifted.

She had closed it. She remembered locking it.

The nearest guard reacted instantly, stepping in front of her. His hand went to his sidearm.

“Stay behind me,” he said.

They swept the apartment a second time. No broken windows. No sign of forced entry. Nothing missing.

But the air felt wrong.

Someone had been there.

And they had left without taking anything because they weren’t here to steal. They were here to leave a message.

She said nothing as they returned to the car.

“I’m not coming back here,” she muttered.

No one argued.

By the time they pulled back into the hospital, night was folding over the city. The sky had finally decided on rain. The drops hit the windows with steady rhythm, like time refusing to wait.

Inside, the surgical floor was quiet. The nurse behind the desk offered her a tight smile.

“They’re still with him. No complications so far.”

She nodded and moved past, settling into a chair in the farthest corner of the waiting room. It smelled like antiseptic and old fear.

Her phone buzzed once.

She ignored it.

Then it buzzed again. A name lit up the screen.

Luke.

She picked up.

“I need you to listen,” he said. “And I need you not to panic.”

That never meant anything good.

“I’m at the office,” he went on. “We had a breach.”

“How bad?”

“Someone used a floor badge. No forced entry. No tripped alarms. They got in and out like they belonged there.”

Her fingers tightened around the phone. “What did they take?”

“One thing. A single file.”

“Which file?”

There was a pause.

“Your original contract.”

It took her a second to breathe.

“The signed hard copy. The one stored in the vault. The one Frederick never wanted digitized.”

She stared at the wall across from her. It was empty, beige, and suddenly unbearable.

“Luke,” she said, her voice low, “why that document?”

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out. The security footage shows someone with internal access. Either someone spoofed credentials, or we have a mole.”

She pressed her hand to her chest, steadying her breath.

“There’s more,” he added.

Of course there was.

“They didn’t just take the contract. They left the vault open. Like they wanted us to know it was them.”

Amelia said nothing.

Her fingers curled in her lap, nails pressing into her palm.

This wasn’t just a threat anymore. This was a move. Calculated. Personal. Aimed not at Frederick, but at what bound them.

Someone had drawn a line in the sand.

And they had erased her name from the other side.