MIA
The conference room went quiet.
Not the normal kind of quiet. The kind where everyone stops breathing at once because they know something terrible is about to happen and they don't want to miss it.
Mia Harlow looked up from her laptop. Forty faces stared back at her. Some excited. Some nervous. All waiting.
Her stepsister Cora stood at the front of the room, perfectly styled hair and a smile that looked sweet until you saw her eyes.
"Before we move on," Cora said, adjusting the microphone, "I think everyone deserves to know the truth about Mia Harlow."
Mia's fingers stopped moving on her keyboard.
"My dear stepsister." Cora's voice dripped with fake concern. "The woman who married a dying man for his money. The woman who pretends to work here like she actually earned her position. The woman who—"
"Cora." Mr. Peterson, their department head, shifted uncomfortably. "This isn't appropriate—"
"It's absolutely appropriate." Cora turned to face the room full of colleagues. "Everyone whispers about it anyway. Mrs. Crane. The charity case who married wheelchair-bound Elias Crane when he had six months to live. That was five years ago, by the way. Five years of playing devoted wife at fancy parties while living in separate houses. Five years of cashing checks."
Someone coughed. Nobody looked at Mia.
"Gold-digger," Cora said clearly. Each word landed like a slap. "Fraud. Whore."
The room temperature dropped ten degrees.
Mia closed her laptop slowly. Her hands didn't shake. They never shook. She'd learned a long time ago that people only believe you're breaking if you show them the cracks.
She stood up.
"Mia—" someone started.
She walked toward the door. Her heels clicked against the tile floor. One step. Two steps. Twenty pairs of eyes followed her. Twenty people who would go home tonight and tell their families this story. Twenty witnesses to her public destruction.
Cora's voice chased her out. "Running away won't change what you are."
Mia kept walking.
She made it to the elevator before her chest started to hurt. The doors closed. She stared at her reflection in the polished metal. Same dark hair pulled back. Same gray blazer. Same face that had smiled through five years of charity galas and business dinners and newspaper interviews about her "inspiring devotion" to her sick husband.
Same lie.
The parking garage was cold and empty. Her car sat exactly where she'd left it that morning, back when the day was normal and she still believed she could survive another twelve months. Twelve months until the contract ended. Twelve months until she could finally breathe.
She sat in the driver's seat and stared at the concrete wall.
Gold-digger. Fraud. Whore.
The words weren't new. Cora had been saying them privately for five years, ever since their parents announced Mia would marry Elias Crane instead of her younger, prettier stepsister. But saying them out loud, in front of everyone, with witnesses and recording devices—
That was different.
That was war.
Mia started the car. Her hands were steady on the wheel. They were always steady. That's what five years of pretending teaches you. How to look calm while everything inside you is screaming.
The drive home took forty minutes. She didn't remember any of it.
The apartment was dark when she walked in. She didn't turn on the lights. Just dropped her purse on the counter and sat down at the kitchen table in her coat, her scarf, her boots. The heating hadn't kicked on yet. She could see her breath in the air.
Her phone sat on the table in front of her. Seventeen missed calls. Thirty-two text messages. She didn't open any of them.
The clock on the microwave said 11:47 PM.
She'd been sitting there for six hours.
She didn't feel sad. She didn't feel angry. She felt nothing at all, and that scared her more than Cora's words ever could. Because the contract said she had to maintain appearances. Had to smile at events. Had to protect the Crane family reputation. And you can't smile when you've forgotten how to feel.
Her father used to tell her: You're stronger than you think, Mia. You just have to decide to be.
She'd decided five years ago when she signed that contract. When she married a man she'd never met to save her family from debt. When she became Mrs. Elias Crane in front of three hundred guests and promised to love a stranger until death did them part.
Strength wasn't feeling nothing. It was choosing to stand when everyone expected you to fall.
The phone rang.
The sound cut through the silence like a knife. Mia stared at the screen. Unknown number. Her finger hovered over the decline button.
Something made her answer.
"Mrs. Crane?" A man's voice. Official. Careful.
"Yes."
"This is Detective Morrison with the Metropolitan Police. I'm sorry to call so late." He paused. The kind of pause that means bad news is coming. "There's been an incident. It's about your sister."
"Stepsister," Mia corrected automatically.
"Right. Your stepsister, Cora Harlow." Another pause. Longer this time. "Mrs. Crane, I need you to stay calm."
Mia's heart started beating faster. "What happened?"
"Cora Harlow was found dead this morning."
The world stopped.
Not slowed down. Stopped completely. Like someone hit pause on reality and forgot to press play again.
"What?" The word came out as a whisper.
"Her body was discovered at 6:47 AM in her apartment. The circumstances are... suspicious. We're treating this as a homicide investigation."
Mia's mouth opened. Nothing came out.
"Mrs. Crane? Are you still there?"
"Yes." Her voice sounded strange. Distant. Like someone else was using her mouth. "How?"
"I can't discuss details over the phone. But I need to ask you some questions. Can you come to the station tomorrow morning? Say, nine o'clock?"
"Questions about what?"
Detective Morrison's voice changed. Got harder. "About where you were today. About your relationship with the deceased. About the incident at your office this afternoon."
The conference room. The attack. The forty witnesses.
Gold-digger. Fraud. Whore.
"Mrs. Crane, can you come in tomorrow?"
Mia stared at her reflection in the dark kitchen window. Same gray blazer. Same pulled-back hair. Same face that had just become the last person to publicly fight with a dead woman.
"Yes," she heard herself say. "I'll be there."
She ended the call.
The phone slipped from her hand and clattered onto the table.
Cora was dead.
Cora, who'd spent five years destroying her reputation. Cora, who'd called her a whore six hours ago. Cora, who'd smiled while she did it.
Dead.
Mia's hands started shaking. Finally. After six hours of sitting in the dark feeling nothing, her hands finally shook.
Because she knew what this looked like.
A public fight. Witnesses. Motive. And the only person in the world who had a reason to want Cora Harlow dead was the woman currently sitting alone in a dark kitchen with no alibi.
Her.
The phone screen lit up with a new notification. A news alert.
BREAKING: Heiress Cora Harlow Found Dead. Police Suspect Foul Play. Ghost Killer Strikes Again.
Ghost killer.
Mia's blood turned to ice.
The Ghost. The faceless crime lord who'd been killing people in this city for years. No witnesses. No evidence. No mercy. The police had been hunting him forever. They never got close.
And now Cora—
The apartment suddenly felt too small. Too dark. Too quiet.
Mia stood up fast. Her chair scraped against the floor. She needed to call someone. Needed to think. Needed to—
Her phone rang again.
Different number this time. One she recognized.
The Crane estate.
Her husband's house. The place she visited twice a month for appearances. The mansion where Elias Crane sat in his wheelchair and took his medication and slowly died while she played devoted wife for the cameras.
Why would they call now? Elias never called. That was the arrangement.
Her finger shook as she answered.
"Mrs. Crane." Damien Shaw's voice. Elias's assistant. Always professional. Always cold.
"What's wrong?"
"Mr. Crane would like to see you. Tonight."
"Tonight? Damien, it's almost midnight—"
"He's insisting." Something in Damien's voice changed. Got quieter. "He saw the news about your sister."
Stepsister, Mia almost corrected. But her mouth wouldn't work.
"Mrs. Crane," Damien said slowly, "you need to come now. There's something you need to know about your husband. Something that can't wait until morning."
The line went dead.
Mia stood frozen in her dark kitchen, phone clutched in her shaking hand.
Cora was dead.
The Ghost had killed her.
And her dying husband—the man she'd barely spoken to in five years—suddenly needed to see her in the middle of the night.
Right now.
She grabbed her keys.
She didn't know why she was going. Didn't know what Damien meant. Didn't know anything except that the world had just tilted sideways and she was falling into something she couldn't see the bottom of.
The door slammed behind her.
In the darkness of her abandoned kitchen, her phone screen glowed with one final notification.
A text from an unknown number. Three words.
Run, Mia. Run.