The first thing Emma noticed after three years in prison wasn't the sky or the cold or the noise.
It was the silence inside her.
Not the hollow kind—the dangerous, volatile quiet of something that had finally stopped breaking.
She adjusted the strap of her worn canvas bag and stepped onto the cracked sidewalk. The city had changed. Or maybe she had.
Either way, she had no illusions left.
She checked into the cheapest hostel in Midtown. One room, shared bathroom, peeling paint, and a buzzing radiator.
It felt like freedom.
Until he came.
---
She heard the car before she saw him. The soft purr of an engine too sleek for this neighborhood.
The black Maybach pulled to the curb like a panther approaching prey.
Emma didn't flinch.
The back door opened. Ryan Blake stepped out, immacul
