The guest room was white, silent, and cold enough to feel unused by the living.
Nora showered until her skin turned pink, scrubbing away bourbon, sweat, makeup, blood, and the phantom pressure of Derek’s hands. The soap smelled like cedar, the same scent clinging to Dominic’s suit and the air around him.
She hated that it steadied her.
She had no clothes except the torn slip dress, and she could not make herself put it back on. In the dresser, she found neatly folded men’s T-shirts, black and charcoal. She pulled one over her head. It fell halfway down her thighs.
It smelled like him too.
Sleep did not come easily.
Every time her eyes closed, she heard Derek’s boots. Then Dominic’s voice. Then the elevator doors sealing shut.
At two in the morning, thirst pulled her from the bed.
She limped into the living room and stopped.
Dominic sat in a low chair near the window, wearing a dark gray T-shirt, tattoos wrapping one forearm, a crystal tumbler loose in his hand. No lights were on. The city below carved his profile in silver.
“The water is filtered through the tap,” he said.
Nora startled.
“I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“I don’t sleep.”
She moved to the kitchen island, filled a glass, drank until the dryness in her throat eased.
“Did he leave?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“How?”
Dominic took a slow sip.
“My men put him in a taxi.”
“With a fractured cheekbone.”
Dominic’s eyes slid toward her.
“He struck a guard.”
“Derek hit one of your men?”
“He attempted to. Badly.”
Nora stared into the glass.
“He’s stupid enough to come back.”
“Then he is stupid enough to learn.”
The casual finality in his voice made her stomach twist.
She should have been horrified.
Part of her was.
Another part—the part that still remembered Derek’s fingers on her wrist, Derek’s voice saying you belong to me—felt something worse than relief.
It felt satisfaction.
That terrified her.
“You’re not a good man,” she said.
Dominic looked back at the city.
“No.”
“At least you know.”
“I know everything important about myself.”
“No one does.”
That made him turn his head again.
For a second, real interest sharpened his gaze.
“You’re brave when you’re exhausted.”
“No. I’m tired when I should be terrified.”
“There is a difference?”
“Yes.” She set the glass down. “Terror has energy.”
He watched her for a moment, then looked away.
“Go to bed, Nora.”
“Why do you keep saying my name?”
“Because it is yours.”
The answer should not have mattered.
But Derek rarely said her name unless he was angry. Most of the time she was baby, sweetheart, mine, liar, crazy girl, ungrateful bitch. Her own name in Dominic’s mouth was not soft, but it was exact.
It belonged to her.
The next morning, a brown paper bag sat on the sofa.
Inside were dark jeans, a black cashmere sweater, soft leather flats, and a white envelope containing five crisp hundred-dollar bills.
Nora returned the envelope to the marble island.
“I don’t need your money.”
Dominic sat there in a navy suit, sleeves rolled, laptop open, espresso steaming by his hand.
“You likely need to break your lease.”
“I’ll manage.”
“Pride is expensive.”
“So is being owned.”
His typing stopped.
The silence sharpened.
Then he closed the laptop.
“Take the clothes. Leave the money. The elevator is unlocked. A car is waiting in the private garage. Give the driver an intersection, not your address. Walk the rest of the way.”
The instructions were tactical.
Not a ride.
An extraction.
Nora almost laughed.
“Do all your houseguests get escape protocols?”
“Most of my guests are not fleeing drunken men with poor impulse control.”
“Most?”
He looked at her.
“Go, Nora.”
She did.
The driver did not speak once.
He dropped her three blocks from her apartment, as instructed. The morning heat rising from the pavement felt vulgar after the penthouse’s cold filtered air. Her apartment building looked smaller than she remembered, its brick face dirty, front door sticking, hallway smelling of old cooking oil and cigarette smoke.
Inside, she locked the deadbolt, chain, and jammed a chair beneath the knob.
Then she saw the answering machine.
Fourteen messages.
Her finger hovered over the button.
Not knowing was worse.
She pressed play.
Derek’s voice filled the apartment.
At first, rage.
Then sobbing.
Then promises.
Then rage again.
By the last message, he was sober.
That was worse.
“I found out whose floor that elevator went to,” he said, voice flat and deadly. “The bartender talks. You think a rich prick cares about you? He threw you out, didn’t he? And when I find you, Nora, you’re going to understand something. You belong to me. I don’t care who he is.”
The machine clicked off.
The apartment felt suddenly made of paper.
Nora stood in the center of the room, looking at the chair under the doorknob, the thin window lock, the cheap curtains, the old couch Derek had once shoved her over during a fight then apologized to as if the couch mattered more.
The police would not save her.
She knew because she had tried.
A report. A pamphlet. A tired officer saying, “Call us if he comes back.”
As if men like Derek waited politely outside while women dialed.
Nora walked into her bedroom and pulled a canvas duffel from the closet. She packed underwear, socks, two T-shirts, a toothbrush, her birth certificate, three photographs of her mother, and the tiny tin box where she kept cash tips from the steakhouse.
The bag looked pathetic.
The entire sum of her life zipped shut in eight seconds.
She was not going back to Dominic to beg.
She was going back to bargain.
The Bellamy Grand lobby was bright and cold when she returned.
The daytime concierge looked up at her bruised ankle, her cheap duffel, the black cashmere sweater, and immediately decided she was a problem.
“May I help you, miss?”
“I need to send a message to Mr. Cassio.”
The man’s face drained.
“We don’t have—”
“Tell him Nora is downstairs.” She set the white envelope on the marble desk. “Tell him I brought his money back.”
Ten minutes later, the scarred guard appeared.
No words.
Just a nod.
Nora followed him into the private elevator.
This time, she looked in every corner before stepping inside.
Dominic stood by the window when she entered the suite.
He did not turn.
“You are remarkably bad at following instructions.”
She dropped the duffel at her feet.
“I can’t outrun him.”
“You knew that.”
Her jaw tightened.
“You sent me away anyway.”
“I gave you the opportunity to choose what you already knew.”
She wanted to hate him for that.
She almost did.
But there was a brutal honesty in it. He had not pretended she was safe because pretending would have been easier. He had let her stand inside the weakness of her own situation until she understood it without his hand at her back.
“I need your doors,” she said.