I let it go to voicemail.
"Boss? You still there?"
"Yeah." I watch the screen light up again. Same name. Same grating persistence. "Lian, handle it however makes sense. You don't need me signing off on every decision."
"Right, but Stellan said?—"
"Then ask Stellan." The edge in my voice makes him pause. I force myself to soften it, marginally. "You've been doing this long enough. Trust your gut."
He agrees, relieved, and I end the call before he can ask anything else that requires me to pretend I give a shit about product distribution or territory management or any of the thousand details that used to consume my days.
The phone buzzes immediately. Bianca again.
I silence it and shove it in my pocket.
Going home means listening to her talk about whatever social function she's planning or complain about the caterer or shriek into her phone at her sister about God knows what. It means walking through rooms that echo with nothing, past her expensive perfume that clings to everything like a stain, into a bedroom that feels more like a cell than the actual cells I've put people in.
Stellan's place would be better, but he's out handling problems that I should be with him on. Too bad that things feel strained between us—probably because I've become as soulless as he accuses me of.
I used to be made for this job. I could handle anything, force anyone back in line. I was great at breaking things—laws and people's will to live mostly.
Now I just go through the motions, waiting for someone to break me instead.
The sun hits the pavement at an angle that suggests late afternoon. I've been walking for the better part of an hour, no destination, just movement because standing still means thinking and thinking means?—
I should check the warehouse in Fishtown. Haven't been by there in a few days, and Danny mentioned something about a shipment last week that I should probably verify personally. It's not necessary, but it's something to do that isn't going back to that mausoleum and listening to Bianca's voice drill into my skull.
I'm about to head that direction when something catches my eye.
A woman, half a block ahead, turning the corner onto Locust. Dark braids catching the light in a way that makes my chest constrict before my brain even processes why. The way she moves—strikes me as far too familiar.
It can't be.
My feet move before I decide to move them, closing the distance but keeping back far enough that I won't— that she won't?—
I made her a promise. I never went looking. Told everyone who worked for me that if they saw her, I didn't want to know. She asked me for one thing the entire time I knew her and I gave it to her even though it felt like carving out my own organs with a dull knife.
But this isn't looking. This is just— this is walking in the same direction. This is coincidence.
This is a lie I tell myself as I follow her down Locust toward Rittenhouse.
She pauses at a crosswalk and I get a better view. Same height. Same build. The braids are longer than I remember, copper-toned and intricate, falling past her shoulders. She used to like them short, but maybe she's changed.
She's wearing jeans and a loose white shirt that moves with her when she shifts her weight, checking her phone with one hand while the other?—
The light changes and she moves again, crossing the street with that same economical grace that used to make me want to watch her do simple things for hours. Making coffee. Reading on the couch with her feet tucked under her. Standing at the stove while I tried to teach her to make risotto and she insisted it was "just fancy rice."
Everything in my chest feels too tight, like my ribcage decided to contract and crush every vital organ at once.
It can't be her. Philadelphia's a big city. Lots of women have braids. Lots of women move like they're used to carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders.
She turns her head slightly, looking at something in a shop window, and I see her profile.
My heart stops.
It's her.
Eight years. Eight years of forcing myself not to look, not to ask, not to use every resource at my disposal to track her down and make sure she was safe and alive and?—
