Sterling’s Fortune

Chapter 16

The temperature in the Metropolitan Museum didn't just drop; it vanished.

One moment, the air was conditioned and pleasant. The next, it was a vacuum of absolute freeze. Breath plumed from the mouths of the socialites in thick, white clouds. The champagne in the crystal flutes on the nearby trays clouded over, then cracked the glass with a sharp tink-tink-tink as it froze solid.

There was no screaming. The shock was too profound for that. Instead, a wave of shivering murmurs rippled through the Great Hall. Teeth chattered. Shoulders hunched. The wealthy, usually so insulated from discomfort, looked around in confusion, pulling their tuxedo jackets tight.

Alistair stood in the center of the sudden winter. He didn't shiver. He didn't feel the drop. He was the drop.

He looked down at his hand. The bracelet sat in his palm, heavy and lifeless. The rose gold, which had pulsed with warmth only minutes ago, was now just cold metal.

"Alistair!" Bianca grabbed his arm, her fingernails digging into his sleeve. Her lips were already turning a pale violet. "The heating grid... the phones are dead. We need to leave. My driver is out front."

Alistair turned his head slowly. He looked at her not with anger, but with a terrifying void. His eyes were the color of the blizzard raging against the glass ceiling above them.

"Let go of me," he said.

His voice was quiet, but it cut through the murmuring crowd like a razor.

Bianca flinched and released him. "We need a statement! We need damage control. The board will—"

"Get out," Alistair said.

"Excuse me?"

"Get out of my sight, Bianca. Get out of this city. If I see you again, I won't just ruin your portfolio. I will erase your existence."

He didn't wait for her response. He turned and walked toward the exit. He walked past the shivering donors, past the weeping curator who was trying to wrap his coat around a statue, past the painting of the Grey Tower that now seemed less like art and more like a sentence.

He walked out into the night.

Fifth Avenue was a graveyard of white.

Elodie ran. She didn't know where she was running to. She just knew she had to get away from the lie.

The wind screamed down the canyon of skyscrapers, driving snow into her eyes, her mouth, her lungs. The emerald velvet dress, so elegant inside, was now a heavy, wet trap, dragging at her legs. Her heels slipped on the rapidly icing pavement.

Asset, her mind replayed, keeping time with her frantic heartbeat. Subsidiary. Property.

He hadn't loved her. He had hedged his bets against her.

She stumbled, her knee hitting the hard concrete. Pain shot up her leg, but the cold was already numbing it. She tried to stand, but the wind pushed her back down. She huddled against the stone facade of an office building, wrapping her arms around herself.

I’m going to die here, she thought, a strange calm washing over her. I survived the crash just to freeze on the sidewalk in a designer dress.

Two headlights cut through the blinding white wall of snow.

A massive black vehicle was crawling down the avenue, pushing through the drifts like a tank. It wasn't a taxi. It was the Sterling Escalade.

It pulled up to the curb right in front of her. The passenger door flew open against the gale.

"Miss Rose! Get in!"

It wasn't Alistair.

Elodie squinted through her frozen lashes. "Arthur?"

"Get in, ma'am! Please! Before you freeze!"

Elodie didn't argue. She scrambled into the warmth of the SUV. Arthur reached across and pulled the heavy door shut, locking out the howl of the storm.

The silence in the car was sudden and heavy. The heat was blasting.

Arthur looked back at her. The usually stoic driver looked shaken. He took off his uniform jacket and threw it into the back seat.

"Put that on. You're turning blue."

Elodie wrapped the jacket around her trembling shoulders. "Did... did he send you?"

Arthur put the car in gear, navigating around a stalled bus.

"No, ma'am," Arthur said grimly. "Mr. Sterling walked out the side exit. He refused the car. He’s walking to the Tower."

"He's walking?" Elodie asked, her teeth chattering. "In this?"

"He doesn't seem to feel it," Arthur said. He looked at her in the rearview mirror. "I saw the news alerts on my phone before the network crashed. The contract... I didn't know, Miss Rose. If I had known he did that, I would have warned you."

"I know, Arthur." Elodie wiped a tear that had frozen on her cheek. "Just take me to Queens. Please."

Arthur gripped the wheel. "I can't, ma'am. The bridges are closed. The Queensboro is iced over. The tunnels are flooded. Manhattan is locked down."

Elodie slumped back against the seat. "So I'm trapped?"

"We have to get you somewhere safe," Arthur said. "Not the Tower. I assume you don't want to go there."

"Never," she whispered.

"I have a cousin in Hell's Kitchen," Arthur said. "Above a bakery. It’s warm. It’s safe. You can wait out the storm there."

Elodie nodded, closing her eyes. "Thank you, Arthur."

"Don't thank me," Arthur muttered, turning the car down a side street. "I’m just the driver. And apparently, I’ve been driving for a fool."

Alistair reached the penthouse.

He hadn't taken the elevator. The power was out in the entire grid. He had walked up eighty flights of stairs in the dark.

His legs burned. His lungs ached. But the physical pain was a relief. It was the only thing distracting him from the noise in his head.

He pushed open the heavy oak door.

The apartment was a tomb. The floor-to-ceiling windows, usually offering a view of the city of lights, now looked out onto a void. The city was black.

The wind battered the glass, vibrating the entire building. The temperature inside was dropping rapidly.

Alistair walked to the living room. He didn't turn on a flashlight. He knew this room. He knew the shape of his loneliness perfectly.

He walked to the corner. To the Christmas tree.

It was still there. The lights were dead, but the smell of pine was faint in the cold air.

He reached out and touched one of the photos Elodie had tied to the branches with red ribbon. A picture of his mother laughing in the snow.

"You were right," he whispered to the dark room.

He had spent his whole life building a fortress to keep the chaos out. To keep the pain out. And when the one thing that actually made sense, the one variable that defied his algorithms, walked in, he tried to file it. He tried to own it.

He reached into his tuxedo pocket and pulled out the bracelet.

He walked to the fireplace. He struck a match. The flame flared, illuminating his face—hollow, pale, devastated.

He lit the logs.

He sat in the leather armchair, still in his coat, staring at the fire. He held the bracelet in his hand, squeezing it until the metal cut into his palm.

"Let it freeze," he whispered.

The wind howled outside, a mournful, shrieking sound. The temperature in the room continued to drop, his breath visible in the firelight.

And on the table next to him, the compass, the one that had pointed so surely to Home, spun wildly, round and round, finding no purchase, lost in the magnetic storm of his own making.