Richard was gone. The apartment was silent again, a sterile container for the lies he had left behind. I stood in the center of the living room, the city sprawling out below the vast windows, and felt a profound sense of detachment. This wasn't my home. It had never been. It was his trophy case, and I had merely been one of the exhibits.
There was no time for sentiment. Every minute I spent here was a minute wasted. I walked into the home office, a small, glass-walled room where I had spent countless hours building Richard's empire in secret. I sat at the desk, pulled out a small, encrypted burner phone from a hidden compartment in my purse—a precaution I'd maintained out of old habit, a habit for which I was now eternally grateful.
I dialed a number I had not called in six years, a number I knew by heart. It rang once, a clipped, electronic tone, before a voice answered. The voice was male, calm, and utterly devoid of emotion. It was exactly as I remembered.
"Yes?"
There was no introduction, no name. This was a line that existed for one purpose only.
I took a steadying breath, my own voice emerging colder and clearer than I had expected. "This is Nightingale."
There was a pause, a beat of silence as the name was processed. It was a code word, a key to a door I had locked and sealed six years ago. It identified me not as Jane, but as Eliza. The daughter of the man he served.
"The protocol is confirmed," the voice on the other end said, his tone unchanged. "What are your orders, Ms. Thorne?"
Ms. Thorne. The name felt foreign and familiar all at once. It was a mantle I had shrugged off, a weight I had thought I'd never bear again. Now, it was my armor.
"Activate Protocol Nightingale," I commanded, the words tasting of power and finality. "Full spectrum. I need a complete extraction and identity restoration. Erase the Jane Sterling persona from every digital and physical record. It must be as if she never existed. I need a clean car at the service entrance of this building in three hours. Destination, the Thorne estate. No tail."
"Understood, Ms. Thorne," the man, whose name I knew was Arthur, replied. He was the head of my family's private security, a man more loyal to my father's memory than to anyone still living.
"Arthur," I added, my voice dropping. "There is one more thing. I need a full, deep-dive forensic audit on Sterling Innovations and all of Richard Sterling's personal and corporate accounts. I want every transaction, every communication, every secret he has ever had. I want to know where every single dollar is buried. He is not to be alerted. The audit is to be silent, invisible. I want the preliminary report on my desk by the time I arrive at the estate."
This time, there was a fractional pause. A flicker of something that, in Arthur, passed for surprise. "He is the target?"
"He is the primary target," I confirmed, my voice like ice. "There is a secondary target, Serena Devereaux. My half-sister. I want the same audit conducted on her. I suspect their finances are linked. Find the link. Expose it."
"It will be done, Ms. Thorne," Arthur said. The flicker was gone, replaced by the chilling efficiency I remembered. "The car will be there in three hours. Welcome back."
The line went dead.
I placed the burner phone on the desk and stood up. Three hours. That was all the time I had left in this life, in this lie. It was more than enough.
I moved through the apartment, a silent wraith on a final mission. I went to the closet, ignoring the rows of simple, modest clothing that belonged to Jane. Behind a false panel at the back, a panel Richard had never known existed, was a small, locked safe. I entered the code—my mother's birthday—and it opened with a soft click.
Inside was a passport bearing the name Eliza Thorne. A set of untraceable credit cards. A small, velvet pouch containing a handful of flawless diamonds, emergency currency. And a slim, state-of-the-art laptop, completely clean, loaded with the most advanced security software in the world. This was my escape kit, a remnant of a life I had left behind, a life where one always had an exit strategy.
I packed a single, nondescript black duffel bag. I took nothing that Richard had given me. I took nothing that belonged to Jane. I packed only the tools of my resurrection. The laptop, the passport, the diamonds. I added a single change of clothes, a simple black dress I had kept for reasons I couldn't explain. Perhaps, subconsciously, I had always known I would need it for a funeral. The funeral of Jane Sterling.
The last thing I did was walk into our bedroom. I looked at the large, perfectly made bed, a place where I had slept beside my own Judas. My eyes fell on my left hand, on the simple, elegant diamond ring Richard had given me when he proposed. It was a beautiful lie, and it suddenly felt like it was burning my skin. I twisted it off. It left a pale, naked mark on my finger.
I didn't throw it. I didn't crush it. That would be a crime of passion, and the passion was gone, replaced by something far colder. I walked over to his side of the bed and placed the ring perfectly in the center of his pillow. A silent, damning statement. He would find it when he came home, victorious and triumphant from his meeting. It would be the first sign that his perfect world was about to come crashing down. And I would be long gone.