Chapter 23
LILA
I thought Gavin would be the hard part, and I thought the part after would feel like relief, but it doesn’t.
It’s been two days, and New York keeps moving like nothing happened, which means my phone should be screaming and my inbox should be burning, but it’s quiet instead, and quiet is what makes my skin crawl.
No unknown numbers, no new threats, no ugly little messages dressed up like concern, and no headlines about a man getting pulled out of a lounge and handed to detectives with a neat stack of evidence.
Ethan says that’s what it looks like when the first step is solid, because the people doing the intake don’t leak details and Victoria doesn’t put her name on anything she can’t rinse.
I know he’s right, and I still don’t like it.
“They haven’t moved,” I tell him that morning while I stand in the rental kitchen and stare at a mug I’m not drinking from.
Ethan looks up from the laptop. “That’s good.”
“It’s controlled,” I correct, because “good” feels like tempting fate.
His mouth tightens, then eases, and he doesn’t argue with the difference. He’s learned I hear tone before I hear intention, and he’s learned that when I say something scares me, I’m not asking to be talked out of it, I’m asking for a plan.
“They’re watching for the next opening,” I add.
“Yes,” he says. “And we’re watching back.”
The rental is in Manhattan, and it isn’t under either of our names.
It’s the kind of building you don’t notice twice because it’s clean and quiet and forgettable, and it has fewer strangers watching the lobby than the places with polished doormen and loud opinions.
Ethan calls it smart, and I call it necessary, and neither of us pretends that “necessary” doesn’t come with a cost.
By midday, I’m sick of sitting still, and I’m sick of waiting for the next hit to come from an angle I didn’t predict. I do the one thing I avoided for months because it felt like opening a door in a room I’d kept sealed on purpose.
I log into LinkedIn.
My profile looks the same, and my life doesn’t. I scan the notifications and see three profile views I don’t recognize, all with thin accounts, barely-there work histories, and photos that look like they came from the same image pool.
I don’t pretend that’s normal.
I turn the screen toward Ethan. “These.”
He steps in behind me, and he doesn’t touch me, but his presence fills the space anyway. He reads, then his gaze lifts, and the calm in his face doesn’t change, but the focus does.
“Don’t click anything,” he says.
“I wasn’t going to,” I reply.
He nods once and makes the call.
“Harrison,” he says when the line picks up, “run three LinkedIn accounts for open-source indicators, and I want pattern analysis, not guesses.”
Harrison answers on the first ring. “Understood.”
Ethan ends the call and looks at me. “If they’re real people, they’ll have a footprint. If they’re not, they’ll share habits.”
“Habits like what?” I hate that my stomach is already tight.
“Same sign-up window,” he says. “Same image sources. Same posting cadence. Same clusters of engagement. It’s hard to fake a person perfectly without copying something.”
My phone buzzes before I can answer, and my heart kicks hard for no good reason, because my body hasn’t accepted that danger doesn’t get a free seat at every table anymore.
It’s a message request on Instagram from an old college friend I haven’t spoken to in six years.
hey stranger! guess who’s in town? let’s grab a drink. :)
I stare at it then hand the phone to Ethan without speaking.
He reads it once, then twice, then looks up at me. “That’s not your friend.”
“It’s not,” I agree, and my throat feels dry.
“But it’s a hand she’s using.” His voice stays flat like he’s talking through a checklist.
I type one word back.
When?
The reply comes fast, which is the first tell, because my actual college friend never responded quickly unless it involved a group chat and four people shouting over each other.
Tonight. Your pick. :)
Ethan’s phone buzzes a second later, and he doesn’t even glance down before he says, “Harrison just linked two of those profile views to the same burner contact pool we flagged after the deli, and the third is tied to a recently created email that’s been used to set up meetings under other names.”
I swallow. “So it’s Sabrina.”
“It’s an approach,” he corrects. “Sabrina does the approach, because she’s the one who can sit across from you without setting off alarms.”
I let out a short breath. “You think she’s testing me.”
“She is,” Ethan says. “She wants to see if you’ll bite, and she wants to see how alone you are when you do.”
I stare at the message again, and the part of me that used to freeze in place tries to take control. I push it down.
“We do it,” I say.
Ethan’s eyes hold mine. “If you’re doing it, we do it clean.”
“I’m not staying in this apartment waiting for her to decide when I’m allowed to breathe,” I reply, and my voice doesn’t shake because I don’t let it.
He nods once. “Okay. We pick the location.”
We pick a bar in Lower Manhattan that’s loud enough to cover conversation, busy enough to hide faces, and ordinary enough that no one remembers anyone the next day.
The chairs are uncomfortable, the fries are bad, and the bathrooms are always crowded, which means there are witnesses and movement and noise, and that’s what I want.
Ethan doesn’t come with me.
He tries at first, because he always tries, and I shut it down.
“You can’t be visible,” I tell him while we sit in the car a block away. “Not across the street, not in a corner, not at the bar pretending you’re just a guy with a drink, because she knows your face and she’ll feel it.”
His stare is sharp. I can feel him wanting to push back, but he doesn’t, because he’s learned that the fastest way to lose me is to treat my fear like weakness.
“I’m not leaving you uncovered,” he says.
“I’m covered,” I reply. “Your people are in place, and you’re going to respect the fact that I’m the one who gets her talking.”
He breathes in through his nose, then lets it out. “You’re wearing the wire.”
I tap my waistband under my coat. “It’s on.”
“You check it twice,” he says.
“I already did.” I keep my tone factual, because if I let it turn into emotion, we’ll both get stuck there.
Ethan nods, then lifts his phone and speaks quietly. “Harrison, she goes in alone. No visible tails. Keep distance, and stay off her sightline.”
Harrison answers immediately. “Understood.”
Ethan looks back at me. “Check-in every seven minutes.”
“I heard you,” I say, and I hate that it makes me feel like a child, but I don’t fight it. Rules keep my thoughts from sprinting ahead of my body.
“You don’t leave without the check-in,” he repeats.
“I won’t,” I say, and I mean it.
He watches me for a second. The fear in him is quiet, but it’s there, and it makes something in my chest soften even as my spine stays straight.
“This ends tonight,” he says.
“It starts tonight,” I correct. “Victoria’s still out there.”
His mouth tightens. “I know.”
He lets me out a block away, and he stays in the car, and I don’t look back, because looking back is how you start bargaining with yourself.
Inside, the bar is dim and loud and full. I pick a booth toward the back where I can see the door without looking like I’m guarding it. I keep my bag on the seat beside me with the strap looped around my wrist, and I stop myself from touching the wire again, because nerves are readable.
Sabrina is already there.
She looks like she stepped out of a brand campaign and into a place that doesn’t deserve her, and she’s using the contrast like a weapon. Her hair is longer, her face is sharper, and her smile is too smooth for the setting.
“Lila,” she says, like we’re friends and we’ve just been busy.
I slide in across from her and rest my forearms on the table. “Sabrina.”
She looks me over. Her gaze drops for a fraction of a second, then lifts again, and I don’t miss it.
“You look…settled.” There’s something almost pleased in her voice, like she’s already decided what she’s seeing.
“I’m alive,” I answer.
She flags the server and orders two drinks without asking what I want.
“Same as last time,” she tells the server, then she looks at me like she’s doing me a favor.
“I’m pregnant,” I say, calm and flat, because letting her control the reveal makes my skin crawl.
Her smile doesn’t slip, but her eyes brighten. “Congratulations.”
The server returns with two glasses.
I don’t touch mine, and I slide it back an inch.
Sabrina notices and smiles wider, like she enjoyed the small discomfort.
“So,” she says, settling back. “Gavin got himself into trouble.”
I blink once. “Did he.”
She leans in, voice dropping. “He’s in holding, and he’s not enjoying it, and someone handed the detectives a package they didn’t have to build themselves.”
I keep my face still. “You sound informed.”
“I’m connected,” she says, like it’s a joke.
“You helped cover for him.”
“Sure,” she says. “Back when he was useful.”
“And now he isn’t.”
“Now he’s a liability.” There’s a clipped edge under the polish. “I’m not in the business of protecting idiots.”
That’s the first crack I’ve heard from her, and I store it away.
“What do you want?”
Sabrina’s smile holds, but her rhythm changes. “I want out.”
I don’t react. “Out of what.”
“Out of Victoria,” she says, and the words come faster now, like she’s trying to get ahead of her own fear. “And I want protection. I want it written, I want it recorded, and I want a path that keeps me out of prison.”
I tilt my head slightly. “You think I can offer you that.”
“I think you’re with Ethan.” She says his name like she’s tasting it. “And I think you’ll do anything to make sure your baby is born without someone hunting you.”
My fingers curl under the table, then I force them to relax, because she wants to see tension and she wants to use it.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say, bland and boring.