Chapter 1 #2
My eyes blur. My throat closes. Twenty-five years of hoping he'd be different, and it takes exactly three seconds to kill it.
My fingers curl into fists. Every instinct screams at me to burst out of this curtain, destroy everything my hands can reach, and set fire to this whole filthy empire.
I want my mother. I want her so badly I can almost smell her perfume. Gardenias and vanilla. I can almost feel her arms around me, her hand smoothing my hair, her voice soft against my ear. You're stronger than all of them, baby girl. Don't ever forget it.
But she's gone. Buried in a cemetery I can't visit without seeing Malone headstones stretching back generations. And tonight proves my father might as well be among the dead with how soulless he’s become.
Instead of reaching for the matches I know my uncle keeps on his desk for his cigars, I count to sixty. Then sixty again. Making sure they're gone. Making sure no one is waiting in the hallway to grab me.
When I hear nothing, my heartbeat slows. Barely. The shaking in my hands doesn't stop. But I can’t wait around much longer. I move.
The files. I need my files. Six months of evidence, documentation, witness statements. Everything I need to destroy them.
I take two steps toward the door before reality crashes over me.
The files are in my room. My room is on the third floor. Guards are everywhere, cameras in every hallway, and my uncle's men are probably already watching my door.
If I go back for the evidence, I won't make it out.
The realization hits like a second blow. Six months of work. Hundreds of hours. Witnesses I cultivated, documents I stole, a case I built piece by painstaking piece.
I have to leave it. All of it. Six months of work abandoned.
My hands shake as I take inventory of what I have. Phone in my back pocket, driver's license stuck to the case. Laptop bag slung across my body, the worn leather strap cutting into my shoulder.
My friends tease me about never being without this bag. Always prepared, they say. Always ready to work.
Right now, it's the only thing I have.
I move to the window. The service entrance is two floors down and thirty feet to the left. I mapped escape routes my first week here, a paranoid habit from growing up in a house full of criminals.
And well, right now all I have to say to that little quirk is thank God for my paranoia. For once in my life, the crazy pays off.
The window opens silently. I oiled the hinges twice since I arrived, just in case.
Funny how "just in case" becomes "thank fuck I did that" real quick in this family.
Look at me, thinking like a criminal. Daddy would be so proud.
If he weren't busy selling me off to please his slimy crooked brother.
The night air hits my face, cold and sharp, and I suck it into my lungs like it's the first clean breath I've taken in months. Fifteen minutes behind a curtain breathing cigar smoke and my uncle's cologne? I'm barely exaggerating.
The ledge is narrow. Maybe eight inches of decorative stone between me and a three-story drop to some gnarly looking spikes my family considers decorative. I have thoughts on that and a certain figure from history and his affinity for spikes, but I need to focus.
The wind whips my hair across my face. Below, the ground waits, dark, pointy and wholly unforgiving.
I force my body out of the window when my common sense screams for me to formulate a better plan.
And then muscle memory takes over. Hand over hand along the decorative molding.
Feet finding holds I memorized in the dark.
The stone bites into my fingers, cold and rough, scraping skin.
My arms burn. My shoulders scream. The laptop bag shifts with every movement, threatening to throw off my balance.
Don't look down. Don't think. Just move.
The wind cuts through my thin shirt. My fingers go numb. I lose my grip for one heart-stopping second, nails scrabbling against stone, and the world tilts sideways.
I catch myself. Press my body flat against the wall and force myself to finally breathe.
In. Out. In. Out.
Fuck. Me.
My pulse roars in my ears, drowning out everything except my own ragged breathing. Sweat makes my palms slick despite the cold, and my fingers slip against the stone. I wipe them one at a time, rough granite scraping skin, and keep moving. Hand. Foot. Hand. Foot. Don't think. Just move.
I reach the service entrance in under two minutes.
It feels like hours. My arms tremble. My shoulders scream.
The door is locked, but the code hasn't changed since I arrived.
7-7-2-4. My fingers shake so hard I miss the first button and have to start over.
7-7-2-4. My mother's birthday. She'd appreciate the irony of it saving my life.
Seamus probably thought it was sentimental. A tribute to his dead sister-in-law and made a mental note to change it. If I’m right, thank God he never got around to it.
My fingers tremble as I punch in the numbers. The red glowing keypad beeps and then turns green a second before the lock clicks.
I slip through into the narrow stairwell. Down two flights. Through the basement. The air is stale, dust and the hint of old mechanic oil clings to the dark walls.
I push through the darkness, slip out the back door. My target is the delivery entrance at the back of the property.
The second I am out of the basement, I put knees to chest.
The grounds are dark. All the security lights are positioned to watch the front of the house, not the back. Sloppy. Arrogant. Good for me no one ever expected someone to run from the inside.
My boots hit grass and pavement, barely marking a low thud as I haul ass.
I hit the tree line and keep going. Branches scratch my arms, leaving thin lines of fire across my skin. My lungs burn. My laptop bag slams against my hip with every stride. Roots try to catch my feet. I stumble, catch myself, keep running.
The night swallows me whole. Cold air. Dark trees. There’s a distant hum of traffic somewhere ahead and I keep my focus on that.
I don't stop until I see headlights.
Only then do I let myself think.
I brace my hands on my knees, gasping for air. My legs shake. Nah. My whole damn body shakes. The adrenaline starts to fade, leaving something colder in its wake.
Saturday. The auction is Saturday. That gives me five days.
Five days to vanish before I'm standing on a stage, half-naked, while men bid on my body. Not a lot of time to outrun a man who's never let anyone escape him.
My hands shake as I pull out my phone. The screen glows in the darkness, too bright, a beacon that screams here I am.
I should call the police. Report everything. Let the system handle it.
Except the system is bought. Seamus owns judges, cops, prosecutors. Any report I make will get back to him within hours.
I need help. Real help. The kind that doesn't play by rules my uncle has already broken.
My thumb hovers over my contacts. I scroll past names I don't trust, people who might talk, numbers that lead back to my family's network.
Then I see it. Sloane.
We met at a coffee shop three months ago.
She was in line behind me, made a comment about the barista's terrible taste in music, and somehow we ended up talking for two hours.
She's the only friend I've made in Chicago who has no connection to my family.
Rich, a little wild, always dragging me to clubs I'm too tired to enjoy.
She answers on the third ring. Music pulses in the background, bass heavy and rhythmic.
"Onyx! I was just thinking about you. You need to get out more. When's the last time you did anything fun?"
"Sloane." My voice comes out wrong. Thin. Shaky. Nothing like the composed journalist I've trained myself to be. "I need help."
The music fades. She's moving somewhere quieter. I hear a door close.
"What's wrong? You sound like you've been crying. Are you okay?"
"No." The word scrapes past the tightness in my throat. "I need to get out of here. Tonight. Right now."
"Out of where? What's going on?"
"I can't explain. Not over the phone." I glance back toward the estate. Nothing but darkness, but I swear I can feel eyes on my skin. "I just need somewhere to go. Somewhere safe."
"Where are you?"
"Walking. About a mile from my father's property. I can't go back."
"Jesus, Onyx." Her voice sharpens with concern. "What happened? Did someone hurt you?"
Yes. My father. My uncle. Everyone I was supposed to be able to trust.
"Family stuff. Bad family stuff. Really bad. I just need somewhere they won't look for me."
Silence. I can practically hear her thinking. A car passes on the road, headlights sweeping across the trees, and I duck into the shadows until it's gone.
"Okay." Sloane's voice is steady now. Decisive. "I'm at Scarlet Thorn right now. It's a club in the Redthorne Building downtown. Get here. I'll meet you at the door."
"Scarlet Thorn?"
"Trust me. It's safe. Safer than anywhere else in this city, actually." She pauses. "The people who run it... they don't let bad things happen to women there. It's kind of their whole deal."
Something about the way she says it catches my attention. But I don't have time to ask questions.
"Onyx, you sound really scared. Should I send a car?"
"No. No cars." Anyone could be watching. Anyone could report back to Seamus. "I'll get there myself."
"Are you sure? I can have someone there in—"
I white knuckle my phone. My friend’s voice is literally the only tie to safety I have right now. "I'm sure. The less people who know where I am, the better."
"Okay. Just... hurry. And text me when you're close."
"I will."
"And Onyx?"
"Yeah?"
"Whatever this is, we'll figure it out. You're not alone. Not anymore."
The kindness in her voice nearly breaks me. My eyes sting. My throat tightens. I swallow hard, forcing the tears back.
"Thanks, Sloane."
"That's what friends are for. Now move your ass. I'll be waiting."
I end the call and start hoofing it toward the main road and the Redthorne Building.
Six months of research floods back. Rafael Milano. The Red Letter Syndicate. A criminal empire that rivals my family's, but operates differently. More strategic. More selective. There are rumors of a wish-granting system that sounds like urban legend but keeps showing up in my notes.
They're my father's enemies. Have been for years, dating back to our roots in New York.
The enemy of my enemy.
I walk faster, laptop bag bouncing against my hip, the night air burning my lungs. My feet ache. My scratched arms sting. The cold seeps through my thin shirt, raising goosebumps along my skin.
I don't know what I'm walking into. I don't know if Sloane's safe haven is actually safe, or if I'm jumping from one fire into another.
But I know I'm not going back.
I know I'm not standing on that auction block.
And I know that sometimes, when you're cornered, the only move left is the one nobody expects.
My phone buzzes. A notification lights up the screen.
Eleven missed calls from my father.
I stare at his name until the letters blur.
He looked me in the eyes tonight and chose silence.
He watched me tremble in fear, needing him, but decided I wasn't worth the fight.
He walked out of that study and left me gift-wrapped for his brother's sick auction like I meant nothing, like twenty-five years of being his daughter added up to less than whatever leverage Seamus holds over his pathetic head.
My thumb hovers over the screen. Part of me wants to listen to what he has to say. The daughter in me wants him to explain, apologize, and tell me he's coming to save me.
But I watched his face. I saw the moment he chose the Malone empire over me.
He's not coming to save me. I delete the notifications without listening to a single message.
Then I keep walking.
My phone buzzes again. I pull it from my pocket, pop the case off, and yank the SIM card free. The phone goes under my heel. Once. Twice. The screen cracks, shatters, and dies. Next, I grind the SIM into the pavement until it's nothing but plastic dust.
My laptop bag holds three burner phones, each one bought with cash in a different city. Every number that matters lives in my head so it’s no real loss
I pull out burner number one, power it on, and keep walking.
Behind me, the Malone estate disappears into the darkness.
A set of headlights come around the curve. I stick a thumb up and risk getting murdered by a random serial killer so that I can outrun the one I share blood with.
And I save myself on steps.