"You can’t!"
I shout so loudly that a couple at the next table turns.
"Lu, listen to me. The one watching you isn't your ally. He’s someone your father destroyed. He’s insane, and he sees you as a liability. A glitch in the system that needs to be removed."
"Let him come," she says fiercely, her chin tilting up in a gesture that bears a terrifying resemblance to Deimos’s arrogance.
"I’m tired of hiding. I want answers. I’ve spent my whole life without my father. Not knowing if he’s even still alive. This is my chance."
At that moment, my phone vibrates in my pocket. Just once. Briefly. I pull it out under the table. No message. Just an active microphone icon on the display and one single sentence in the top bar:
"Too many words, Madeline. Time is up."
I look up and scan the street. Outside the window, on the other side of the street, sits a black car with tinted windows. The engine is running. The exhaust puffs gray smoke into the cold air.
"Lucy, we have to go. Now," I say with icy calm, even though my heart feels like it is being ripped from my chest.
"I’m not going anywhere, Madeline. I don't trust you anymore. You’re both meddling in my life, and I’ve had enough."
Lucy stands up, throws money on the table, and before I can stop her, she runs out of the cafe. I watch her vanish into the crowd, and I know I have just lost. I am helpless.
Deimos doesn't want to save her from Charles. He wants to liquidate her to take Charles’s last toy away. And I have just unknowingly pointed the way for him. The cold air lunges into my lungs as I burst through the cafe doors, scanning the sea of coats and umbrellas.
"Lucy!"
I scream, my voice cracking against the noise of the traffic.
She is gone. The sidewalk is a blur of strangers, none of them wearing her bright red scarf. My eyes dart to where the black car was idling, but the space is empty, marked only by a fading patch of exhaust. The realization hits me: she is running straight into a trap, and I have provided the map.
I fumble with my phone, my fingers numb and shaking. I dial her number.
"Pick up, please, just pick up..."
Voice mail.
"Damn it!"
I hiss, swiping to the one contact I have sworn to ignore. I press the unknown number that still makes my skin burn with a mixture of terror and memory. Deimos.
The line stays silent. No ringing. Just a hollow, digital void. He is letting the silence do the work, dragging me back into the psychological cage he’s built over the last seven days. I call again. And again. My frustration boils over into a blind, white-hot fury.
"I know you’re listening!"
I yell into the receiver, not caring about the people staring at me on the street.
"If you touch her, I swear to God I will finish what your father started! I’ll tear down every beautiful 'design' you’ve ever made! Pick up the phone!"
Nothing. Just the faint, rhythmic static that tells me the line is open, but he isn't going to speak. He is savoring my breakdown. He wants me to feel the exact moment I lose control. The moment I realize that no matter how much I fight, I am just a piece on his board.
I stand on the corner of the crowded street, the wind whipping my hair across my face, feeling more alone than I ever have in the morgue surrounded by the dead.
Minutes turn into an hour. Then two. My phone remains a cold, silent weight in my hand. No GPS coordinates come. No threatening text. Nothing.
The silence isn't just a lack of sound; it is a physical pressure, a vacuum that begins to suck the air out of my lungs. My mind, usually so sharp and analytical, starts to fracture. One moment, I am furious, convinced Lucy is fine, that she is just being her typical defiant self.
But then, I remember the way Deimos looked at the DNA results. That dead, hollow gaze. I remember the way his hands felt, capable of the most delicate touch or the swiftest kill. He doesn't do things halfway. If he has decided Lucy is a liability, she is already lost.
"Get it together, Madeline," I whisper, my voice sounding like a stranger's.
