The black car Rowan had sent was idling at the curb like a silent, watchful beast. Elara didn't wait for the driver to open the door; she scrambled out and ran up the stairs of her brownstone, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs.
When she burst through the apartment door, Maya was already standing there, a mountain of half-folded laundry on the sofa.
"Elara! Your face is white. What happened? Who was that guy in the suit downstairs?"
"We're leaving," Elara said, her voice shaking as she grabbed a suitcase from the hallway closet. "Not to the corporate apartments. Not to the 'protection' Rowan Thorne offered. We're running, Maya. Now."
Elara began throwing things into the suitcase—not her tailored suits or the expensive planner, but her old jeans, her worn-out sweaters, and her legal documents.
"He's not just a boss, Maya. He's... he's tracking me. He knows about my father, he's using him to blackmail me into staying. He said my father is sending people to take me back home." Elara's breath hitched. "I'm caught between two men who want to own me. I have to disappear."
Maya didn't ask more questions. She saw the genuine terror in Elara's eyes—the look of a cornered animal. She dropped the laundry and moved to her own room. "I'm with you. But you can't go to a hotel, El. They'll find your credit card trail in minutes."
Maya returned five minutes later, clutching an old, weathered envelope. She pressed it into Elara's hands. Inside was a thick stack of cash—hundreds and fifties.
"This was my 'emergency-move-to-Paris' fund," Maya whispered. "It's nearly four thousand dollars. It's untraceable. Take it. Take the bus, not the train. Go to Philadelphia, then switch to a different line. Go somewhere small."
"I can't take your savings, Maya—"
"Take it!" Maya insisted, her eyes fierce. "If you stay here, they'll use me to get to you anyway. I'll stay behind, tell them you hopped a flight to Canada. I'll buy you time."
Elara stripped off the matte-black loafers Rowan had bought her. She looked at them for a second—the perfect fit, the liquid leather—and felt a shudder of revulsion. She tossed them into the back of the closet and stepped into her old, beat-up sneakers.
"I'll call you from a burner phone," Elara promised, hugging Maya so tight it hurt. "Thank you. I'll pay you back, I swear."
"Just be free, El."
Elara took only one backpack and a small carry-on. She slipped out the back fire escape, avoiding the front window where the black SUV was still parked. She climbed down the rusted iron stairs, her sneakers silent on the metal, and vanished into the alleyway.
Thirty minutes later, the driver of the black SUV grew suspicious. He tapped his earpiece. "Sir, she hasn't come down. It's been forty minutes."
In the high-rise office, Rowan Thorne stood up from his desk. The calm, calculated expression he usually wore shattered. He opened the tracking app on his phone. The pulse that represented the sensor in the heel of the loafers he'd given her was stationary.
It was still in the apartment.
"She's gone," Rowan whispered, his voice a low, terrifying snarl.
He didn't call the police. He didn't call her father. He pulled up the city-wide surveillance network he'd paid millions to access.
"You think you can run from me, Elara?" he murmured, watching the flickering screens. His eyes were wide, fixed, and glowing with an obsessive light. "I told you. I make it my business to know the dimensions of everything I value. And I know exactly how far those tired sneakers will take you."
He grabbed his coat, his movements jagged and frantic. "Find the bus terminals. Every single one. If she's on a vehicle, stop it. I don't care about the cost."