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The Boutique

Penulis: Hallie Shoemaker
last update Terakhir Diperbarui: 2025-09-30 10:45:34

The morning air clung to Mya’s skin like damp paper, sticky and heavy, as she stood in front of the cracked mirror above her dresser. Her reflection wavered in the imperfect glass, but she studied it as if she were preparing for battle.

Her wardrobe was a patchwork of survival: last year’s dresses that she’d kept carefully pressed, hand-me-down blouses she’d altered with clumsy stitches, skirts that had been shortened to hide frayed hems. She tugged at the hem of her navy dress now, smoothing it over her thighs. The fabric was serviceable, not luxurious, but at least it was clean and neat.

She applied her makeup with the same precision she had once reserved for Damon’s dinner parties. A thin line of eyeliner, powder to dim the shadows beneath her eyes, a sweep of rose lipstick. Her hand paused halfway to her mouth. Rose. Not crimson, not the armor she’d worn the night she walked out. Just rose—soft, human. She pinned her hair in a neat twist and told herself it made her look composed,
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  • The Cross Family   The Box

    Eva woke to the smell of concrete and stale air.Not the sharp antiseptic of a hospital, not the familiar citrus-clean of Cross offices—this was older. Damp. The kind of place that held secrets in its walls because it had no windows to betray them.Her eyes fluttered open and immediately met darkness—not complete, but dim enough to disorient. A single overhead bulb glowed somewhere above her, buzzing faintly, inconsistent like it was deciding whether to stay alive.Her wrists were bound.Not painfully tight. Just tight enough to remind her that if she fought blindly, she’d lose skin before she gained leverage.Her ankles were bound too, a looped restraint attached to the legs of the metal chair she sat in. The chair was bolted to the floor. Whoever did this had no interest in improvisation.Eva tested the bonds once, gently. The zip ties were industrial. The kind used in shipping, not cheap plastic.She forced her breathing steady.Panic was a luxury. Panic made people sloppy.Her hea

  • The Cross Family   Conditions

    The call came at 2:17 a.m.Alexander had been awake anyway, standing in the war room with his jacket slung over a chair, sleeves rolled up, tie long forgotten. The city outside Cross HQ glowed cold and distant, but inside, the air was tight with caffeine, screens, and controlled urgency.When the phone rang, every conversation stopped.Alexander didn’t look at the number. He already knew.“Put it through,” he said.Marcus tapped a key, routing the call through layers of encryption and voice masking. The speaker crackled once, then stabilized.A man’s voice came through—distorted, mechanical, stripped of accent and warmth.“Mr. Cross,” the voice said. “Thank you for answering.”Alexander folded his arms. “You have sixty seconds.”A faint chuckle. “You always were efficient.”Alexander’s eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly.“What do you want?” he asked.“Not money,” the voice replied smoothly. “That would be crude.”“Then you’re calling the wrong man,” Alexander said flatly.“On the cont

  • The Cross Family   Gone

    Alexander lost her in under four minutes.That was the number that replayed in his head as the city blurred past the SUV’s windows, traffic lights streaking red and gold like accusations. Four minutes from the café sidewalk to the private clinic he’d diverted to—four minutes where Eva had been conscious enough to grip his sleeve, to whisper about the flash drive, to trust him to keep moving.And then she was gone.Not unconscious—missing.They’d made it inside. He’d handed her over to a doctor he trusted, a woman who’d worked discreetly for the Cross family before. Eva had been slurring, pupils blown, skin flushed in a way Alexander recognized too well now. A fast-acting sedative, probably injected. Not lethal. Designed to disorient. To take.Alexander had stepped out for one phone call.One.When he came back, the room was empty.The bed stripped. The IV line cut cleanly. No signs of struggle beyond a single overturned chair and a smear of blood on the tile where the needle had been

  • The Cross Family   Almost Safe

    The café was busy enough to feel anonymous.That was why Eva chose it.Late morning, just before the lunch rush—baristas moving fast, laptops open at half the tables, conversations overlapping into a constant low roar. Big windows. Two exits. Cameras mounted in the corners. Public enough that nothing bad was supposed to happen.Supposed to did a lot of work these days.Eva arrived early and chose a table near the back wall, chair angled so she could see both the door and the counter reflected in the mirrored panel behind the espresso machines. She ordered black coffee she wouldn’t drink and kept her phone face down on the table, fingers resting lightly against it. Her heartbeat felt steady. Controlled.She was wearing jeans and a plain jacket, hair pulled back—nothing distinctive. She’d learned how to disappear in plain sight.Across the street, Alexander sat in an unmarked sedan with the engine off.He hated this part.The waiting. The watching without intervening. The careful calcul

  • The Cross Family   Pressure

    The warning didn’t come as a threat.That was what made it worse.Alexander sat at the head of the boardroom table, hands folded neatly in front of him, posture relaxed in the way that unsettled people who thought they were delivering hard news. The room was glass and steel and carefully neutral art—nothing here was accidental, least of all the silence that stretched a beat too long before anyone spoke.It was the oldest member of the board who finally cleared his throat.“You need to distance yourself from the journalist.”The words landed softly. Practiced. Polite.Alexander didn’t look up from the tablet in front of him. “That’s not a recommendation,” he said. “That’s an instruction.”A ripple of discomfort moved around the table.“It’s a precaution,” another board member said. “Your association with her is becoming… visible.”Alexander lifted his eyes then, gaze cool. “She’s investigating corruption tied to our vendors.”“And while we appreciate your commitment to transparency,” t

  • The Cross Family   The Price of Attention

    The confirmation came at dawn.Not with a headline. Not with sirens or flashing lights. It arrived the way the worst truths always did—quietly, buried in a report stamped preliminary and sent through encrypted channels meant to keep panic contained.The whistleblower was officially missing.Alexander stood at the head of the long conference table in his private situation room, jacket draped over the back of a chair he hadn’t used. The screens along the wall glowed with maps, timelines, and still frames pulled from security cameras that refused to give up anything useful.Last known location: two blocks from a Cross-owned distribution facility on the river.Last contact: a single, incomplete voice message sent to Eva at 11:47 p.m.Static. Breathing. One word—“They—”—and then nothing.Eva sat rigidly in the chair nearest the screens, arms folded tight across her chest, jaw locked so hard Alexander could almost hear her teeth grind. She hadn’t slept. Neither of them had. Coffee sat untou

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