The car didn’t move.
It sat under the distant glow of a streetlight, a silver shark in the dark water of the city night. Cole’s BMW. A monument to his obsession.
Audrey backed away from the window, her heart a frantic bird beating against the cage of her ribs. The feeling of reclamation, of strength, evaporated into a cold mist of fear.
She hadn’t escaped the cage. She had just run back inside and locked the door from within.
Her hand went to the deadbolt. Click. She slid the chain across. Click. Useless gestures against a man who knew every weakness in her defenses because he had built them himself.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket. An unknown number. She let it go to voicemail. A few seconds later, the notification popped up.
Her thumb hovered over the screen. Don’t listen. Don’t let his voice in.
But she had to know. She had to know what she was fighting. She pressed play, the volume low.
“Audrey. Baby, I know you’re home. I saw the lights.” His voice was smooth, reasonable. The voice he used when he was about to convince her she was crazy. “Don’t do this. Don’t shut me out. I know I messed up at the gala, but I was just trying to protect you. Everything I did… the complaint, taking care of it… it was all for you. For us. For our family.”
Our family. The words were a poison dart. She deleted the message, her finger jabbing the screen. He was twisting his sabotage into an act of love. The classic Cole maneuver.
She slept in fits, waking at every sound from the street below. In the morning, the silver BMW was gone.
A fragile tendril of hope unfurled in her chest. Maybe he had given up. Maybe seeing her return home, defiant, had been enough.
It was a stupid hope. She knew it was.
She had to get out. To pretend to have a life. She called Maya. “Coffee? My treat. Someplace public.”
“You sure you’re okay?” Maya’s voice was laced with concern.
“No,” Audrey said honestly. “But I can’t stay locked in here.”
They met at a bustling cafe downtown, miles from her apartment. For an hour, Audrey felt almost normal. The smell of roasted coffee, the chatter of strangers, the solid presence of her friend across the table—it was an anchor.
“He’s watching the apartment,” Audrey confessed, stirring her latte into a brown swirl.
“You should call the police,” Maya said instantly.
“And say what? My ex-fiancé is parked on a public street? They won’t do anything. Not until he actually does something.” Audrey felt the bitter truth of it in her bones.
“This is insane.”
“Welcome to my life.”
She left Maya with a hug that lasted a little too long. She needed the contact, the proof that she wasn’t alone. She hailed a cab, her eyes scanning the street. No silver BMW. She let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding.
The relief lasted until the taxi pulled up to her building.
Cole was standing on the steps to her lobby.
He wasn’t angry. He was smiling. A patient, knowing smile that turned her blood to ice. He had a bouquet of lilies in his hand—her favorite. A flower he would now use as a weapon.
“Audrey,” he said, his voice calm, as if they were just meeting for a date. “I thought we could talk.”
She didn’t answer. She paid the driver, her hands shaking, and got out of the car on legs that felt like jelly. She walked toward the door, her eyes fixed on the keypad.
“Don’t walk away from me,” he said. The smoothness was gone, replaced by a sharp, cold edge.
She kept walking.
“You’re being hysterical,” he called after her. “I’m just trying to be a gentleman here. Is that so wrong?”
She punched in the code and slipped inside, the heavy glass door closing behind her. She didn’t look back. She could feel his eyes burning into her.
Inside her apartment, she leaned against the door, gasping for air. The lilies. He remembered her favorite flower. That was the most twisted part—the performance of love wrapped around the core of his obsession.
Her phone buzzed again. Another voicemail.
“That was rude, Audrey. Hiding from me. I buy you flowers, and you treat me like a monster. After everything I’ve done for you. For our baby. You’re not thinking clearly. You need me to help you.”
His words were hooks, trying to snag the old insecurities he had so carefully cultivated in her. For years, she would have believed him. She would have apologized.
Not anymore. She knew what he was. She had the video on the USB drive. She had the proof of his sister’s complicity. She had the truth.
The truth was a shield, but it was a thin one.
The next day, she went to the museum. It was her sanctuary, her battlefield. She had to reclaim it. The board had cleared her name, and her exhibit was a success. She walked through the gallery, touching the cool glass of a display case, drawing strength from the history around her. These artifacts had survived centuries. She could survive this.
“It’s beautiful.”
His voice.
She froze. He was standing at the far end of the gallery, next to the Minoan vase he had threatened. He was wearing a perfectly tailored suit, looking every bit the patron of the arts. He blended in, but to her, he was a predator in her home.
“What are you doing here, Cole?” she said, her voice low and shaking with fury.
“I bought a ticket. Like everyone else.” He gestured around the quiet room. “I came to see your triumph. Our triumph. Our future was supposed to start here. Remember? Don’t throw all that away.”
“There is no us,” she hissed. “Get out.”
“Or what?” he asked, taking a step closer. His smile was gone. “You’ll call security? And tell them what? Your fiancé, the father of your child, came to admire your work? They’ll think you’re the crazy one.”
He was right. He knew he was right. He had trapped her in public, using social convention as his shield.
She turned her back on him and walked away, her steps clipped and fast. She didn’t stop until she was locked in her office, her hands braced on her desk, her knuckles white.
She sank into her chair, her body trembling. He was everywhere. He was relentless.
Her hand went to her purse and pulled out the small brass key. Kian’s key. She held it in her palm, the metal cool against her hot skin. An escape route. A different kind of prison, maybe, but one Cole didn’t know existed.
The thought was a betrayal and a relief all at once.
That night, the phone rang. She didn’t answer. The voicemail chime was immediate. She knew she shouldn’t. She knew it would be poison.
She listened anyway.
The voice that came through the speaker was not the charming, manipulative Cole. It wasn’t the petulant, wounded Cole. This was someone else. Someone she had only heard glimpses of before, in the dead of night, during their worst fights.
His voice was flat. Devoid of all emotion. It was more terrifying than any scream.
“You think you can just erase me, Audrey? I’m part of you. We’re connected. You’re carrying my child.”
A pause. She could hear his breathing, steady and even.
“You will not take my child from me. Do you understand? There is nowhere you can go. Nowhere I won’t find you.”