The digital "sunlight" on the walls of the 50th floor was a cruel joke. It never dimmed, never flickered, and offered none of the warmth of the real world. Eliana's internal clock, however, was screaming. Based on the dull ache in her joints and the heavy silence of the tower, she guessed it was somewhere near three in the morning.
Her hands were a mess. The skin beneath her fingernails was raw and weeping, stained dark from the mahogany paneling she had been obsessively picking at for hours. But she didn't stop. She couldn't. The hollow thump she'd discovered behind the closet wall was the only thing standing between her and a total mental collapse.
Using a heavy, metal-tipped shoe tree as a makeshift pry bar, she finally felt the wood groan. With a sharp, splintering crack that sounded like a gunshot in the sterile room, a panel gave way. Behind the expensive finish sat a dark, cold void, the internal guts of Luther Tower.
"Got you," she exhaled, her breath hitching with a jagged spark of hope.
She widened the gap, her muscles burning as she fought the stubborn timber. She was a woman of law libraries and courtrooms, not manual labor, but the desperation of a caged animal provided a terrifying strength. Once the hole was large enough, she shed her silk robe and squeezed through the opening, leaving the "Gilded Shackle" behind.
The air inside the ventilation shaft was frigid and tasted of ancient dust and ozone. It was a labyrinth of galvanized steel, narrow and unforgiving. Eliana crawled on her hands and knees, the sound of her own frantic breathing echoing off the metal walls. She moved toward the distant, mechanical hum of the tower's secondary cooling fans, praying they led to a service corridor.
Every few yards, a light-flecked grate offered a glimpse into the floors below. She crawled past Floor 49, a darkened gym. Floor 48, a silent server farm. Finally, she reached a vent that glowed with a soft, amber hue.
She froze, peering through the slats.
It was a private office, smaller and more intimate than the grand workspace Ethan used for show. He was there, alone. The "extra cold" Mafia King looked different in the shadows. His shoulders were slumped, his head bowed as if the crown he wore had finally become too heavy. On the desk sat a single, crumpled photograph.
Eliana held her breath, her chest pressed against the vibrating steel. From her angle, she could see the image: a blonde woman laughing, her eyes bright with a life that hadn't been extinguished yet. Vanessa.
Ethan picked up a silver lighter. The flame danced in his eyes, reflecting a mixture of profound hatred and a grief so deep it looked like a physical wound. He held the fire to the corner of the photo, watching the memory curl into black ash.
"I won't let it happen again," he rasped into the empty room. "I'll keep her so deep in the dark that the world will forget she exists. She'll be safe because she's mine."
A chill ran down Eliana's spine that had nothing to do with the drafty vent. He wasn't just hiding her for business; he was hiding her to atone for a ghost. He was projecting his trauma onto her, turning her life into a tomb to satisfy his own paranoia.
She pushed forward, her jaw set. She wasn't his "safe" thing. She wasn't his property.
The shaft eventually began to slope downward, a steep decline that forced her to brace her feet against the sides. She followed it until she saw a large, industrial-grade grate. With a desperate kick, the metal frame popped, clattering onto a concrete floor below.
She dropped down, the impact jarring her teeth. She was in the Level 4 Parking Garage.
The air here was damp and smelled of exhaust and wet pavement, it was the most beautiful thing she had ever smelled. She stayed in the shadows, her eyes darting between the rows of armored SUVs. She knew the exit would be watched, but the garage was a cavernous maze of concrete pillars.
She spotted a heavy steel door near the far ramp. A service exit. If she could reach it, she would be out. She would be three blocks from a police precinct.
She ran, her bare feet silent on the cold floor. She reached the door and shoved. It didn't budge.
"Looking for a shortcut, Eliana?"
The voice hit her like a physical blow. She spun around, her heart jumping into her throat.
Ethan was leaning against the hood of a black Bentley ten feet away. He was still in the clothes she'd seen through the vent, but the "weary" man was gone. The King was back. His skin looked like dark bronze under the harsh fluorescent lights, and his eyes were chips of frozen glass.
Beside him stood Silas and four sentries, their hands hovering near their holsters.
"How?" she gasped, her chest heaving as she backed against the locked door. "There were no cameras in that room."
"I don't need cameras to track a heartbeat," Ethan said, his voice a low, rhythmic thrum. He walked toward her, his footsteps slow and deliberate. "The second you breached that panel, a silent alarm triggered on my phone. I've been watching your heat signature navigate my vents for forty minutes. You're quite persistent."
He stopped inches from her, reaching out to brush a smudge of soot from her forehead. The touch was unnervingly light, almost tender.
"You're a lawyer," he whispered. "You should know that every unauthorized exit is just a confession of guilt. You've convinced me that the 50th floor is no longer adequate for your 'protection'."
"I'll never stop, Ethan," she spat, though her knees were shaking. "Every lock you buy, I'll learn to pick. Every wall you build, I'll find a way to tear down. You can't own a soul."
Ethan's expression hardened, his jaw tightening until a muscle leaped in his cheek. He looked at her raw, bleeding fingers, and for a split second, a flicker of something like respect, or agony, crossed his face. Then it was gone, buried under a mountain of ice.
"I don't need to own your soul," he said. "I just need to keep you alive. And the Greeks have been circling this block since the auction. If you had stepped through that door, you'd be in the back of a van before you could scream."
He turned to his men. "Take her back to the penthouse. But not the guest wing."
"Where are you putting me?"
Ethan looked back at her over his shoulder, his eyes extra cold. "My quarters. If I can't trust the architecture to hold you, I'll have to do it myself. From this moment on, you don't take a breath I don't hear."
The master suite felt smaller than the isolation room because Ethan's presence was suffocating. His scent, expensive tobacco and cold iron, clung to the air.
Ethan sat on the edge of the bed, watching in silence as Silas installed a high-security deadbolt on the inside of the door.
"This is a mistake," Eliana said, sitting in a velvet chair by the terrace doors. The shutters were open now, showing her the city she was so close to reaching. "The more you try to crush me, the more I'll slip through the cracks."
"Then I'll just have to make sure there are no cracks," Ethan replied. He stood up and walked to a small wall safe, retrieving a pair of thin, elegant silver bands.
Eliana's eyes widened as he approached her. "No. Ethan, don't."
"They're high-frequency trackers," Ethan said, catching her wrist before she could pull away. "They don't come off without a key that stays on my person. You want to play the escape artist? Fine. But now we play with a tether."
He snapped the bracelet onto her wrist. It was beautiful, encrusted with tiny black diamonds, but it felt heavier than a shackle.
"Sleep," Ethan commanded, turning toward the window. "The Engagement Gala is tomorrow. Isabella is coming, and she'll be looking for any sign that you're weak. If you want to survive the night, you'll need to be the best actress in Lucentia."
He walked to the long leather sofa and lay down, closing his eyes. Eliana stayed in the chair, her fingers tracing the cold silver band on her wrist. She thought about the photo he had burned. She thought about the man who was so terrified of betrayal that he was turning his world into a cage.
She looked out at the lights of the city. Somewhere, Luke was still searching. Somewhere, her father was drowning in his own cowardice.
She touched the tracker and closed her eyes. The escape had failed, but she had learned his secret: Ethan Luther wasn't just cold. He was haunted. And haunted men always left a trail.