Masuk[Alice's POV]"It's done," she said. "The call has been made. David has twenty minutes to decide."I could sense her crouching in front of me again. This time, she reached out and — with a swift, almost casual motion — pulled the blindfold off.The light was blinding. Not bright light — dim, fluorescent, the kind of flat institutional lighting you find in parking garages and storage facilities. But after the absolute darkness, even dim light was agony. I squinted, my eyes watering, and it took several seconds for the room to resolve into focus.Concrete walls. Low ceiling. No windows. A single metal door. Two men standing near it — large, expressionless, dressed in dark clothing, their faces obscured by the hoods of their jackets. A chair in the corner where Lily had been sitting. And in front of me, close enough to touch, Lily herself.She looked exactly as she had at the press conference. White dress. Hair down. Gold chain at her throat. The tiny swell of her stomach visible beneath
[Alice's POV]"No, Alice." Her voice was patient now. Informative. Just like a school teacher. The voice of someone explaining something obvious to a slow child."I solved a problem. There's a difference. Zorro was a liability. He had outlived his usefulness, and he was about to become an active threat. In any other context — in business, in politics, in war — removing a threat is not murder. It's strategy. It's survival."I heard her stand up from the chair. Footsteps — slow, deliberate, circling me. I tracked her by sound alone, turning my head slightly as she moved, maintaining what little awareness I could without my sight."But we're not here to talk about Zorro," she said, and the playfulness was back, light and cruel. "Zorro is over. Zorro is done. Zorro is a footnote — if that. By the time the police release his name, no one will care, because the story will have moved on. David and I will be planning a wedding. The baby will be due in a few months. And you..."She stopped. Ri
[Alice's POV]"Zorro," she said, and the word came out like she was spitting something foul from her mouth. "That pathetic, miserable, useless cocky man. Do you know what he was going to do? Do you know what he actually — actually — planned?"Her voice rose, and for the first time, the control cracked. Not a lot. Just enough for me to hear what was underneath it — something hot and venomous and utterly devoid of pity."He was going to hold a press conference. For you. He was going to stand up in front of journalists and say 'I lied. Alice McCutchen is innocent. I fabricated everything.' He was going to clear your name. Your name."The last two words were practically spat."After everything I did for him — after I gave him a purpose, a direction, something to live for — he was going to throw it all away for you. A woman he'd met once. A woman he owed nothing to. A woman who looked at him like he was dirt on her shoe. And he was going to destroy everything I'd built, everything I'd spen
[Alice's POV]I remember the smell first.Not the smell of my kitchen, where I had been sitting thirty seconds earlier, scrolling through Noelle's file. Not the smell of my car, or the elevator, or the press room. Something else entirely — chemical, sharp, cloying. Chloroform. My mind supplied its acrid odor from some deep archive of medical knowledge. The real thing, not the movie version. Heavier. Sweeter. More sickening.My second thought, absurdly, was: I didn't hear the door.My third thought was pure confusion: I'm on the floor.My fourth thought never came, because the darkness swallowed everything.---I woke to darkness.Not the soft darkness of a bedroom at night, but a dense, absolute darkness that had weight and texture. A blindfold. Thick fabric, tied tight enough to press against my eyelids, tight enough that I couldn't open my eyes even a fraction.My hands were behind my back — zip ties, I could feel the ridged plastic biting into my wrists. My ankles were bound too, s
[Alice's POV]My phone buzzed again. Noelle."Alice. It's confirmed. Zurich police responded to a welfare check at The Carrington, suite 7C, at 10:34 p.m. They found a male, age 29, deceased. Preliminary assessment is consistent with self-harm. No signs of forced entry. No other persons of interest. They're not releasing the name yet, but the age and address match."I read the message. I read it again. I read it a third time.Then I closed my eyes.Behind my eyelids, I saw the hotel room. The desk covered in electronics. The burner phone. The open suitcase on the bed, half-packed. The instant noodles on the counter. The wall clock, ticking. The monitors, humming.And Marcus — Zorro — sitting at that desk, his hands pressed flat against the surface, telling me that truth alone wasn't enough and that he was going to do what he could to fix what he had broken.He had written the statement. He had contacted the journalist. He had committed to the path.And then, between ten o'clock at nig
[Alice's POV]He turned slightly. Toward Lily. She stepped forward — not to the microphone, but close enough to be in the frame, close enough for every camera in the room to capture them together."Many of you may know Lily McCutchen. Some of you may know that she and I have been in a relationship for the past several months. What most of you don't know is that, as of last night, I asked her to marry me. And she said yes."The room exploded.Not a murmur this time. An eruption. Cameras fired in staccato bursts — the sharp, mechanical clatter of a dozen shutters firing simultaneously. Voices rose, overlapping, shouting. Two journalists actually stood up, pushing their chairs back, jostling for position.I sat perfectly still.The noise washed over me like a wave — meaningless, formless, a wall of sound that couldn't reach the place inside me where the cold had settled. Because the cold was absolute now. Not a chill, not a shiver, but the deep, glacial cold of a body that has stopped fi
[David’s POV]The scotch didn't help. If anything, it just sharpened the edges of my anger.I paced the length of the suite, the plush carpeting doing nothing to muffle the storm raging inside my head. Lily’s refusal hung over me like a toxic cloud. “I won't sign them! I won’t let you do this!”She
[Alice's POV] The double mahogany doors of the conference room clicked shut behind us, sealing away the suffocating undercurrent swirling in the boardroom. The silence in the hallway was immediate and jarring, broken only by the distant hum of the HVAC system and the frantic beating of my own hea
[Adam’s POV]I was standing on a balcony in the most expensive hotel in Switzerland, wearing a tuxedo that cost more than most people’s cars, with access to unlimited wealth and power, and I was completely, utterly helpless.I was a prisoner in a cage wrought from wealth and privilege. And Marie? S
[Alice’s POV]Adam lowered me onto the soft sofa, propping pillows under me where I lay. “Stay flat. Don’t strain,” he commanded.Sarah came hurrying back, breathless, holding a plastic cup nearly filled with steaming warm water.“Here, try to drink, lady,” she said, her voice like a soft cloud. “I







