جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 140

Elowen's POV By Monday evening, the excitement of the library had worn off completely, leaving behind something colder and more permanent. I sat in my office on the ninetieth floor, the city outside drowning in a steady November rain. For three hours I'd tried to trace the Delaware company that had received those sixteen crates off the Iron Tide. I was careful about it, routing everything through different servers so nothing would trace straight back to me. I didn't want Killian's people noticing what I was searching for. It didn't matter how careful I was. The trail just stopped. The Delaware address belonged to a company that had shut down back in 2009. To find out what was actually inside those crates, the real list my mother had signed off on, I needed the original government shipping record, and it wasn't public. When I finally found where the file was suppo

Elowen's POVI woke with the burner phone still on my mind, locked away in my desk drawer on ninety. Leo's voice kept circling behind my eyes. Be ready for the chance that she wasn't. I hadn't slept more than three hours, caught between my mother's handwriting on that old shipping form and the memory of Killian's mouth against mine.I dressed quickly, dark coat, black trousers, hair pulled back clean. No jewelry except the ring, which felt colder against my skin with every week that passed.Killian was already in the kitchen when I came out, coffee in hand, reading something on his tablet. He looked up as I crossed the floor, his eyes moving over my clothes and settling on my face."Dressed for the street," he said. "Not the office.""I won't be in early," I said, pouring a glass of water. "Evelyn needs some old paperwork filed at the archive before noon. I'm taking it myself."He studied me a moment, looking for whatever I was keeping behind my face. I let him look."Fine," he said.

Elowen's POVThree days of silence in an apartment made of glass feels longer than a month anywhere else.Killian didn't bring up the restaurant again. He didn't ask about Diego, didn't check my calendar, didn't corner me anywhere on the ninetieth floor. He just stopped offering anything beyond the bare minimum it took to keep the company running.In meetings, his voice stayed flat and even. At dinner, on the rare nights we ended up in the same room, conversation started and ended with shipping numbers and the weather over the Atlantic. He slept in his study two nights running, the door shut by ten, leaving me alone in the bedroom with fifty floors of empty sky.It was exactly how he operated. Don't shout, don't demand, just quietly starve the room of warmth until the other person starts doubting themselves.By Thursday, the two days Leo had promised had already come and gone.I didn't call him. I knew my brother well enough to know that hovering only slowed him down. If he'd had good

Elowen's POV The line went dead with a dull click that stayed in my ear long after the screen went black. I didn't pack my bag. I didn't shut down my computer or leave a note. I grabbed my coat off the stand, shoved the phone in my pocket, and walked out before anyone could ask where I was going. Croft wasn't even in yet, his office still dark. I hit the elevator button and stepped into an empty car alone. Outside, the morning mist had turned into a steady, cold drizzle. I flagged the first cab on the street and climbed in. "First Precinct," I said. "Ericsson Place." The ride took less than ten minutes, but it felt endless. My hands stayed shoved in my coat pockets, fingers curled around my phone. Leo had spent eight months in a hospital bed. He had no record in this city, no open charges, nothing that should have gotten him arrested on an or

Elowen's POVThe ninetieth floor was buzzing with a different kind of tension when I stepped off the elevator at one.Luggage sat stacked near the reception desk. A dozen voices in German and clipped British English echoed down the hall, visiting executives from Hamburg and London already going over papers by the coffee station. Miller hovered near the conference room doors, looking nervous, while Croft hurried past with an armful of binders, not sparing me a single glance.Nobody looked at my coat, or noticed I'd been gone for hours. On this floor, the only thing that mattered was that money was moving and the right people were in the building. I could have walked in soaked to the bone and covered in soot, and not one of them would have looked up from their phones.I went into my office, shut the door, and locked it.I pulled off my damp coat, smoothed my blazer, and sat down.The quiet in the room felt fragile. Shipping schedules sat open on my screen, waiting for me. I pulled the b