Chapter 4: The Pawn's Gambit
The town car didn't feel like a courtesy. It felt like a delivery service. Silas Sullivan was efficiently removing a complication from his property, and the silent, professional driver was his instrument. I stared out the window as the imposing iron gates of the Sullivan estate receded, my hands clenched tightly in the lap of the borrowed sweats.
Where did I go? My apartment, the one I'd leased with the bright optimism of a new doctor starting her residency, felt like it belonged to another person in another lifetime. It was a place for the old Elara Vance, the one who believed in rules, in oaths, in love. That woman was gone.
"Take me to the city medical library," I instructed the driver, my voice hoarse.
He nodded, his eyes meeting mine briefly in the rearview mirror. They held no judgment, only a blank professionalism that was more unnerving than curiosity would have been. He worked for Silas. He had likely seen far stranger things than a disheveled woman in expensive sweatpants being whisked away at dawn.
The library was a fortress of silence and knowledge, a place where things could be quantified, understood, and planned. I needed a base of operations, and until I secured my own, this would have to do. I spent the day hidden in a secluded carrel, my laptop plugged into an outlet, the world narrowing to the glow of the screen.
First, money. My personal accounts were modest, a doctor's salary saved for a future that had been stolen. It wouldn't be enough for the war I was planning. With a chill slithering down my spine, I logged into the joint account Kaelen and I had shared in my first life. The password was his birthday; he'd been too narcissistic to choose anything else.
It was still there. Every cent of the generous allowance the Sullivan family deposited monthly for his "expenses." Kaelen, in his self-absorbed misery, rarely touched it, preferring to drain the trust fund that paid for his vices. He wouldn't notice it was gone for months, if ever. It was a start. A soldier's stolen provisions.
Next, information. I needed to know my enemy. All of them.
I dove into the society pages, the business journals, the medical databases I still had access to. I wasn't looking for headlines about Silas or Kaelen. I was looking for her.
Liana Croft.
Her social media was a curated gallery of perfection: charity galas, yacht parties, flawless selfies. But buried in the comments of a months-old photo from a hospital fundraiser, I found a goldmine. A gushing comment from a woman named Brenda: "So proud of you, Liana! Getting your nursing certification while managing all this! A true inspiration!"
Nursing certification.
The pieces clicked into place with an almost audible snap. It wasn't just childhood affection. It wasn't just social ambition. Liana had made herself useful. She had positioned herself not just as Kaelen's lover, but as his potential caretaker, his handler. She was selling the Sullivan family on the idea that she alone could manage his instability, his addictions. She was offering them a solution wrapped in a designer dress.
It was brilliant. And it explained Silas's tolerance of her. He would see her as a useful tool for managing a problematic asset.
The thought was a cold shock. It meant my actions last night hadn't just given her what she wanted; I had potentially played directly into Silas's long-term strategy for his son. I had been a pawn in his game, after all.
The frustration was a bitter taste in my mouth. I had to change the board.
My fingers flew across the keyboard, digging deeper into Liana's past. There had to be a crack in her perfect facade. An old boyfriend, a dropped lawsuit, a failed business venture… something.
The sound of my phone vibrating on the wooden carrel made me jump. The screen flashed with an unknown number. A part of me, the part that remembered the fire, screamed to ignore it. But hiding wasn't an option anymore.
I answered. "Hello?"
"Dr. Vance." The voice was cultured, calm, and utterly familiar. It was Levi, the butler. "My apologies for the intrusion."
My blood ran cold. How did he get this number? How did he know where I was? The answer was obvious: Silas. Silas knew everything. The car, the driver… I was never out of his sight.
"Levi," I said, forcing my voice to remain neutral. "What is it?"
"There's been a… development," he said, choosing his words with the care of a man who had served the family for decades. "Regarding the… incident last night. A personal item appears to have been misplaced during the… commotion. A signet ring. Mr. Sullivan believes it may have become entangled in the… laundry."
The pause before the word "laundry" was infinitesimal but deafening. He wasn't talking about the ring. He was talking about me. The "laundry" was the towel I'd used, the clothes I'd discarded. He was letting me know, in the most discreet way possible, that they had searched the room. They had found my discarded things. They knew I'd showered there. They knew I'd tried to hide the evidence.
And the ring? It was a pretext. A beautifully crafted, deniable message.
"I see," I said, my mouth dry. "I'm afraid I didn't see any ring."
"Of course, Doctor. A misunderstanding, I'm sure," Levi replied, his tone soothing. "The family merely wished to be thorough. We will trouble you no further."
The family. He wasn't speaking for Kaelen.
The line went dead.
I sat in the silent library, the hum of the computer the only sound. He was reminding me. He was letting me know that my moves were being watched. That I might be a player, but he still owned the board.
The fear was back, icy and sharp. But beneath it, something else stirred. A defiant anger. He thought he could unsettle me with a phone call. He thought he could control the game with subtle threats.
He had no idea what I was truly capable of. He had no idea that a mother who had lost her children had already lost everything else there was to fear.
Closing my laptop, I stood up. The medical library had given me what I needed. It was time to stop hiding. It was time to stop reacting.
It was time to make my next move. And it wouldn't be from the shadows.