CHAPTER THREE
354 Words
The rain started sometime after midnight, a slow, steady rhythm against the windows of Henry’s penthouse. Leah didn’t remember falling asleep on the leather sofa, only waking to the faint sound of voices drifting from the study.
She sat up, the room dim except for the pale light from the city outside. The voices were muffled, low — Henry’s was unmistakable. Calm. Controlled. The other… frantic.
She padded across the polished floor, bare feet silent, and stopped just short of the door.
“…you promised,” the stranger hissed.
“I said I’d consider it,” Henry replied, his tone like glass.
“This isn’t a negotiation—”
“It’s always a negotiation.”
The sound of liquid pouring. A soft clink of crystal on wood.
Leah should’ve stepped back. Instead, she tilted her head, straining to catch more.
The stranger’s voice dropped. “If she finds out—”
Silence.
The pause was so sharp it seemed to slice the air. When Henry finally spoke, his words were almost a whisper. “She won’t. Not unless you’re foolish enough to tell her.”
The floor creaked beneath her weight.
The conversation inside stopped.
Leah’s pulse thudded in her ears as the door swung open. Henry stood there, framed in the dim light, his gaze sweeping over her like he was cataloguing every breath she’d taken.
“Couldn’t sleep?” he asked, voice smooth but not soft.
She tried to nod, but the stranger behind him — a man with wet hair and eyes like stormwater — was watching her too closely.
Henry stepped into the doorway, subtly blocking the man from view. “Go back to bed, Leah.”
She hesitated. “Who—?”
“Bed.”
It wasn’t a request.
She turned, the weight of his eyes following her until she was down the hall.
By morning, the stranger was gone. No mention of him. No trace he’d been there at all.
Except… one of the monitors in Henry’s office now showed the woman in the red coat again. Only this time, she wasn’t standing still.
She was running.
- Writer
