Page 102 of Their Arrangement

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Private number.

Blocked.

I almost didn’t answer.

But I did.

“Hello?”

Silence. Then:

“You always were a good girl.”

Selene.

The voice was silk-drenched threat. Lazy and lethal.

“Wearing the perfume. Wearing the skirts. Walking the halls like you’ve earned something. Tell me, is it as easy pretending to belong as it was the first time? Or does it sting a little more now?”

I swallowed hard. “What do you want?”

“Same thing you do, darling. Peace. Safety. A place you don’t have to keep looking over your shoulder. Your ex is back in town. Did I mention that? Sweet boy. Misses you terribly. Still has those photos of you from your little motel phase. You remember that, don’t you? The lace wasn’t designer then.”

My stomach twisted.

“You don’t have to do anything dangerous. Just… open a door. Look inside. That’s it. I’ll take care of the rest. Or don’t. But when he shows up? Just remember I gave you the chance to choose.”

Click.

I didn’t move.

Didn’t breathe.

The wine glass in my hand trembled.

And all I could think—as the photo on the table stared back at me—was that I was already running out of time.

13

CLOE

The office feltwrong after eight p.m.

It wasn’t just the silence.

It was thekindof silence. The sterile kind. The kind that crept along the floor and settled between the ribs. The kind that only existed in places meant for ambition and violence—where worship was performance and failure was foreplay.

My screen was the only light left on the floor. The overhead fluorescents had gone to sleep an hour ago, triggered by motion sensors that assumed no one in their right mind would stay this late.

Maybe they were right.

But I wasn’t staying to impress anyone.

I was staying to survive.

The file on my screen blurred. Numbers. Names. Projected metrics. I tried to read it again. For the fourth time. The fifth. My vision didn’t cooperate.

Neither did my breathing.

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