5. Emma
Emma
My trip to the bodega is eventful.
Thankfully, not because anyone follows me or tries to attack me. I take the car. I’m not stupid. Safety matters more than fresh air, and I need to stay alive if I want to keep breathing it.
So, yes. I willingly accept the cage.
The trouble comes from somewhere completely ordinary.
I pick up the groceries for the house, the way I always do. I prefer buying vegetables fresh, which means I’m here almost every other day now. The woman who owns the bodega looks to be in her fifties, and she smiles when she sees me.
Recognition.
It shouldn’t feel like such a gift, but it does.
I’m running low on shampoo, so I add a bottle to the cart. Tums too, because my stomach has been churning like the sea for days. I pay for the household groceries with the card Alex gave me. No problem. Then I hand over my own card for the shampoo and Tums.
Declined.
The woman tries again.
Declined.
Heat rushes into my cheeks. I stop her before she can run it a third time, afraid the bank might block it completely. There has to be a simple explanation. I’m in a new city. The bank probably flagged the purchase as unusual activity.
It happens.
That’s what I tell myself, anyway.
My cheeks are still warm when I get back tot he apartment.
Alex is working from home again, though I barely see him. He’s been shut inside his study most of the day.
Bee, naturally, is with him.
Probably stretched across his lap like she pays the mortgage.
I’ve truly lost everyone, either to that man or because of him.
By the fourth loop of the synthetic piano, I can predict the half-second gap before the recording tells me my call matters.
I brace my hip against Alex’s kitchen island and look at the breakfast he left untouched. Coffee gone cold in the mug. The plate is filled with food and under a cover. No cinnamon rolls missing from the pan.
He left in a hurry this morning. Even before the coffee he usually drinks as if sugar is a food group and not a warning sign.
I stood behind my bedroom door, listening to it happen.
Hurried footsteps. The low hum of the elevator.
Then silence. I guessed the work-from-home period was officially over.
A moment later, Bee scratched my door.
“Oh, so now that he’s gone, you need me again?” I called through it.
She scratched harder.
Now she sits on the sofa, looking at me like I’m the most unentertaining person alive and she would rather be anywhere else than here, staring at me.
The recorded music cuts off, and a real person answers the phone again.
“Thank you for holding. How can I help you today?”
“Yes, thank you.” I say. “As I told the first gentleman, my card was declined yesterday at a bodega. Twice.”
Keys click on her end. “I’m sorry about that. Can you verify your identity for me for the security check?”
I give her Emma Clarke’s details. The date of birth. The last four digits. The address tied to a life built on paperwork and lies that have been true for so long they are second nature now.
More typing.
“It is showing the account as active,” she says. “There are no holds, no fraud alerts, and no restrictions. Your available balance is healthy.”
My fingers flatten against the cool stone.
“The card was declined.”
“I understand. Was it run as a debit or credit?”
“Debit.”
“And the merchant attempted it a second time?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know if the chip was inserted, or the card was swiped?”
“Inserted first. Swiped after the terminal rejected it.”
A pause. More keys. Then: “I’m not seeing a declined authorization on our side.”
I close my eyes for a second.
“So the account is active, the balance is fine, and no restrictions are showing.”
“That’s correct.”
“But the card still wouldn’t work.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
That answer sits between us, useless and cheerful.
“Nothing here indicates that the card isn’t working.”
“I’d recommend trying the card again at a physical terminal. If it declines, call us immediately while you’re still with the merchant so we can escalate and review the exact response code.”
So the plan is humiliation by choice.
“Fine,” I say.
She gives me a reference number. I write it down on the back of the bodega receipt and repeat it until she confirms every digit. I end the call and wonder what else could possibly go wrong, then immediately clarify to the universe that it was not a challenge.
I pick up my phone and call Mel. It is a call I have been putting off, but she needs to know what is happening, and she is going to be furious that I waited this long to tell her.
She answers on the second ring.
“Emma.”
“Hey.”
One beat of silence. Mel has always known the difference between a routine call and one I only made because something has gone wrong.
“What happened?”
I look toward the window and keep my voice low anyway. “There’s been a black sedan showing up. More than once. I felt like something was off yesterday when I went to the bodega. And then Diego called me, saying something similar.”
Mel goes silent, and I can almost hear her piecing it together.
“What did Diego say?”
“There was a man on campus. Asking questions. About Liam and his sister, Emma Clarke.” The name sounds uglier now. “And there’s a black car. He said it keeps showing up everywhere.”
“When?”
“He mentioned he has seen the car around a few days now. I’ve been noticing for at least about two weeks.”
“And you’re telling me now.”
“Yes.”
I hear her exhale.
“Emma.”
“Don’t.”
“No, you listen to me. My offer still stands. We can move you again, rebuild the paperwork, and find a way to protect Liam’s place at a new school. We can still do this the right way.”
I laugh once, but there is nothing amusing in it.
“The right way?” I press my fingers to the locket at my throat. “The right way costs Liam his scholarship, his entire future he has been dreaming of since he was seven. It will cost him everything.”
“It costs less than a grave.”
The words land like a knife through my sternum. Mel has never padded the truth for comfort. I turn and look at the skyline through the glass. Office windows. Rooftops. Clean lines, sharp angles, a hundred places to watch from.
“I can’t do it to him again,” I say. “I can’t rip him out of another life because ghosts started breathing down our necks.”
“You should never have taken this job.” I knew she would bring us back to this, eventually.
“You made that very clear.”
“And you ignored me.” Her voice stays even, but I know some of that anger is aimed at herself.
She broke protocol to cover for me, and now she has to live with what that decision might cost. “You walked out of witness protection and into the home of a man who would salt the earth to get even with you.”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“You had choices. You just refused all of them.”
That is also true.
When I told Mel what Alex was holding over me, Liam’s scholarship, the Moralez family, their finances, Sofia’s future, she told me to disappear again. She offered me a new name, a new city, another life built from ashes and paperwork.
I refused.
And Mel, who should have reported me the minute I stepped out of line, did something reckless and human instead.
She covered for me. Wrote it up as an authorized job and location change.
Bent the protocol until it almost broke because she cared more about keeping Liam’s life intact than she did about protecting herself.
Someday that choice will come back to haunt her.
We both know it.
“The Accord case is open again,” she says.
My hand tightens on the locket.
“You reopened it?”
“Yes. I requested it personally.”
That does more to unsteady me than I want to admit. Mel does not make personal requests unless something has teeth.
“Because of me?”
“Because a low-level Accord man almost got his hands on you,” she says. “We have enough new activity to stop calling it coincidence. Somebody has caught your scent, and I don’t know how far their reach goes yet.”
Ice moves down my spine.
“What do you know?”
“Not enough.”
“Mel.”
“Not enough,” she repeats. “Only enough to tell you to be careful. And insist that I still think you and Liam should disappear before this gets worse.”
“I’m staying.”
“You are choosing Hartley over your own safety?”
“I’m choosing Liam.”
“And you think the man blackmailing you is going to keep you safe?”
The answer arises before I can stop it.
“Yes.”
Mel says nothing for a second.
Then, very softly, “You believe that.”
“I know Alex.”
A bitter sound comes down the line. “What exactly is it you know, Emma? That he won’t let anyone else hurt you?”
I have no answer ready, so she gives me one.
“Unless he does it himself.”
And that is the problem, isn’t it?
Because Mel is not wrong.
I know what Alex can do. I know what he already has.
But I also know the look on his face when he warned me away from Luis. The cold fury and the possessiveness beneath it.
Alex would destroy any man who touched me because he wanted me, and any man who touched me because he meant to hurt me. He would never allow someone else to claim me, kidnap me, or lay a hand on me in violence.
Whatever else he might do to me himself, he would not let anyone else get close enough to try.
That much I know.
But I cannot explain that to Mel.
“I’ll be careful,” I say.
“That isn’t enough.”
“It’s what I have.”
She lets out a breath. “Then keep your head down. Keep changing your routine; don’t give anyone a pattern to follow.
And tell Liam what’s going on. Keeping him in the dark may have protected him when he was a child, but he’s an adult now, and you’re not there to watch his back.
He needs enough of the truth to recognize danger and protect himself.
Don’t leave him sitting there like an easy target.
And if anything else happens, and I mean anything, you call me first.”
“I will.”
I turn Mel’s advice over and over in my head as I stand at the island with Liam’s name open on my screen, my thumb hovering over the call button. Where do I even begin? How much do I tell him? And how am I supposed to explain any of this over the phone?