Page 1 of The Final Contract
The chandeliers glitter like a thousand captive stars, throwing fractured light over silk gowns and masks lacquered in gold. For one night, New York pretends it’s the Palais Garnier. The final curtain call ofPhantom of the Operahas turned into a requiem and a celebration all at once—the fortieth anniversary marked by a masquerade ball that feels more fantasy than real.
My arm is tucked into Maestro Levant’s, the celebrated conductor of the production. He insisted on making an entrance, and I am his carefully chosen ornament for the evening. The Black Ledger delivers nothing less, after all.
My gown weighs more than I do. Layers of silver tulle and embroidered lace cascade around me, swallowing my frame until I feel less like a woman and more like a stage piece. The mask pressed against my skin is delicate, feathered along the temple, meant to soften.
Smile. Tilt your head. Keep your eyes warm even when the rest of you is screaming to breathe.
The orchestra swells, strings curling around the room like smoke, and the crowd arranges itself around the dance floor.
A waltz designed for spectacle—partners rotating, no longer people but a painting in motion.
I let Maestro Levant guide me, my steps light, my chin tilted just so.
When the dance ends, the Maestro will share the announcement everyone has been waiting for. Next year’s fortieth anniversary ofPhantomwill be marked by a grand flourish, and then the guests will travel to the veranda to watch as fireworks split the skyline.
But as the champagne flutes lift and laughter roars, a shiver crawls down my spine.
It’s the masks. Too many faces covered in gold and bone-white porcelain, expressions fixed into something alien. Every smile looks painted on. Every laugh echoes too loud. I press closer to my date, the perfect Companion, listening when he speaks, laughing when he expects it.
Still—at the edges of my vision, shadows move wrong.
Maybe it’s the heat, the crush of bodies, or the suffocating weight of my gown. Maybe it’s the eerie beauty of the night.
Or maybe it’s instinct.
The one I’ve never ignored.
Not since I realized I had a phantom of my own.
He isn’t an apparition from the stage but a man made of obsession. A stalker. A fanatic who lingers in the cracks of my life, haunting me in ways the play could only romanticize.
My one comfort is that Killian is here. Somewhere.
I can’t see him through the glittering crowd, but I feel him the way a tether feels its anchor. He’s been watching over me for the past year—ever since the night everything changed. When I wasabducted by a paying client, pulled along as collateral for a debt I had no part in. When my boss, Lucian Vale, had to bloody his hands to get me back.
And when Killian became my shadow. My bodyguard.
At an event like this, I never know exactly where he is, only that he’s somewhere watching. That knowledge is the only reason I can draw breath beneath the weight of this gown.
The dance is second nature. I’ve trained in studios for twelve years, and though I left that world behind, my body remembers. The steps are ingrained in my muscles, as familiar as the taste of my own name.
The gown—an homage to the screen adaptation’sThink of Medress, all satin weight and jeweled embroidery—clings like memory and moves like water. Every twirl makes the fabric ripple, every step a careful echo of a role I was never cast to play.
I let myself fall into it. The music. The movement. The endless blur of masks. Faces slide past like shifting cards in a deck, each one painted, feathered, jeweled. The waltz turns into rhythm, rhythm into instinct—until something stills me.
A flower.
Not just any flower. A white rose, dipped at the tips in red.
It peeks from the lapel of a passing mask, and my pulse spikes.
The room keeps spinning, the dance keeps pulling me along, but my heart stutters because I know what that rose means. He’s here.
My stalker.
Since this began, he’s made himself known only by this calling card. A white rose, tainted with red paint. Silent reminders that he’s watching. Waiting.
I only know one thing about him—one detail I’ve clung to, prayed to forget.
