Chapter 7: One Bedroom, One Rule
1424 Words
Sophia Anderson stared at Ethan’s apartment for six full seconds.
Ethan counted.
By seven, he started feeling defensive.
“It has walls.”
“I can see that.”
“A roof.”
“Impressive.”
“Running water on most days.”
Sophia slowly turned toward him.
“Most?”
“Joke.”
He hoped.
His apartment occupied the third floor of an aging brick building on North Mercer Street. One bedroom, one bathroom, a kitchen narrow enough to touch both counters at once, and a living room containing a secondhand sofa Ethan had bought for forty dollars.
Compared with Sophia’s penthouse, it probably looked like a storage closet.
But she didn't complain.
That surprised him.
She set her overnight bag beside the door and examined the apartment with the same attention she gave boardrooms.
Family photograph on the shelf.
Work boots beside the entrance.
Bills tucked under a magnet on the refrigerator.
One crooked lamp.
No art worth stealing.
No security cameras.
No staff.
No Marcus.
Sophia walked to the window.
“Third-floor fire escape.”
“Yes.”
“Rear alley?”
“Yes.”
“Two exits?”
“Front stairs and fire escape.”
“Neighbors?”
“Mrs. Delgado across the hall. She knows everyone's business before they do.”
Sophia nodded thoughtfully.
“Useful.”
“She’s seventy-three.”
“Still useful.”
Ethan almost smiled.
Twenty minutes ago, someone had threatened to kill him.
Now the billionaire CEO standing in his living room was conducting a security assessment beside a rack of drying laundry.
His life had become ridiculous.
“You take the bedroom,” he said.
Sophia looked at him.
“Where will you sleep?”
“Sofa.”
Her gaze shifted toward it.
The sofa sagged visibly in the middle.
“No.”
“That's the arrangement.”
“That thing looks medically dangerous.”
“I've slept on it before.”
“That supports my argument.”
Ethan picked up her bag.
“Bedroom.”
Sophia took it back.
“We alternate.”
“No.”
“Ethan.”
“You're the person receiving death threats.”
“So are you.”
“Mine came second. Seniority matters.”
Her mouth twitched.
He pointed toward the bedroom.
“Go.”
“Do you always order your employer around?”
“Only when she's hiding in my apartment.”
She walked past him.
“Your confidence has increased considerably since yesterday.”
“Yesterday you weren't threatening my furniture.”
Ethan’s bedroom was clean.
Mostly because he'd had no time to make it messy that morning.
Sophia stood in the doorway.
A queen bed occupied most of the room. A dresser leaned slightly toward the wall. A closet door refused to close completely.
She noticed everything.
Naturally.
“You live like this?”
Ethan leaned against the frame.
“What does that mean?”
“You've worked for a billionaire for ten years.”
“Yes.”
“And this is what he pays you?”
Ethan's humor disappeared.
“This is what I can afford.”
Sophia looked around again.
Not with disgust.
That would have been easier.
She looked angry.
“Marcus spends more than your monthly rent on wine at dinner.”
“I know. I drive him home afterward.”
“That doesn't bother you?”
“It used to.”
“And now?”
“I stopped comparing.”
Sophia faced him.
“Why?”
“Because there's always somebody richer. If I spend my life measuring what I have against what Marcus has, I'll never have enough.”
For once, she had no immediate answer.
Ethan pointed toward the bed.
“Fresh sheets.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ll find you something to eat.”
“I can cook.”
He stared at her.
Sophia raised an eyebrow.
“What?”
“You own restaurants.”
“I invest in restaurants. That doesn't mean I require one to make dinner.”
“What can you cook?”
“Several things.”
“Name one.”
She paused.
Ethan grinned.
“I knew it.”
“Pasta.”
“From scratch?”
“Don't become unreasonable.”
They ate takeout noodles at Ethan’s tiny kitchen table.
Sophia had removed her blazer and rolled the sleeves of her blouse to her elbows.
The sight unsettled him more than it should have.
He had seen Sophia at charity galas, investor dinners, corporate events.
Always immaculate.
Always guarded.
Here, without assistants or security nearby, she seemed younger.
More human.
More dangerous.
Because Ethan was beginning to like this version.
He opened the photographs from the black case on the burner phone.
“We need to figure out what connects these locations.”
Sophia leaned closer.
“The restaurant was a meeting with my attorney.”
“What about your apartment?”
“Home.”
“And the car?”
Her gaze stayed on the image.
“That was six weeks ago.”
Ethan remembered.
A charity auction.
Marcus had asked him to drive Sophia home because he'd claimed he needed to stay behind with investors.
“You were alone.”
“Yes.”
“Why photograph you inside the car?”
Sophia's expression changed.
“What?”
Ethan enlarged the image.
“Look at the window.”
A reflection appeared in the glass.
Sophia leaned closer.
Their shoulders touched.
Neither moved.
In the reflection, a man stood near the curb.
Blurred face.
Dark coat.
But something in his hand was visible.
A silver briefcase.
The same type Ethan had collected from Victor Lane.
Sophia inhaled.
“That's not surveillance of me.”
“What?”
“They were photographing the case.”
Ethan looked again.
“Why?”
“I don't know.”
Her phone buzzed on the table.
Both froze.
Unknown number.
Sophia opened it.
YOU CHOSE THE WRONG DRIVER.
Ethan reached for the phone.
A second message appeared.
ASK HIM WHAT HAPPENED TEN YEARS AGO.
Neither spoke.
Ethan felt something cold move through his chest.
Sophia looked up.
“What happened ten years ago?”
“Nothing.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“Ethan.”
“I started working for Marcus.”
“That's not what they're asking.”
“I don't know what they're asking.”
But even as he said it, an old memory surfaced.
Rain.
A highway.
Marcus sitting in the back seat of Ethan’s first company car.
A woman crying over the phone.
And a request Ethan had spent ten years trying not to remember.
Sophia saw the change in his face.
“You do know.”
Ethan stood too quickly.
“I need air.”
She caught his wrist.
“Don't.”
He looked down at her hand.
Sophia released him.
Her voice softened.
“You told me to trust you.”
“I know.”
“Then trust me.”
Ethan walked to the kitchen window.
For ten years, he'd convinced himself it had been none of his business.
Marcus had been his employer.
He had been twenty-one, broke, grateful, terrified of losing the best job he'd ever had.
“Three weeks after Marcus hired me,” Ethan said, “he asked me to drive him somewhere after midnight.”
Sophia went still.
“Where?”
“An apartment building across town.”
“Whose?”
“I never knew.”
“That isn't true.”
Ethan closed his eyes.
He could still see the woman running into the rain.
Blood on one sleeve.
Marcus shouting at him to unlock the doors.
“She called him Marcus.”
Sophia's voice became very quiet.
“What happened?”
“She got into the car.”
Ethan turned.
“She was terrified.”
“Who was she?”
“I don't know her name.”
“What did Marcus do?”
“He told me to drive.”
“Where?”
Ethan swallowed.
“To a hospital.”
Sophia stared at him.
“And?”
“We never made it there.”
“What does that mean?”
Before Ethan could answer, someone knocked on the apartment door.
Three hard knocks.
He and Sophia looked at each other.
Nobody knew she was there.
Supposedly.
The knock came again.
Then a familiar male voice sounded from the hallway.
“Ethan?”
Marcus.
Sophia went pale.
Ethan stared at the door.
Marcus knocked again.
“I know you're home.”
Then came the words that changed everything.
“And I know Sophia is in there with you.”
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