Thea burst through the lobby doors of her building in Battery Park City with lungs burning and mascara streaking her face, barely registering the doorman's startled greeting as she headed straight for the elevators, her hands shaking so badly she could hardly press the button for the fourteenth floor.
The apartment had never felt like home, not really, just another perk that came with the job like her health insurance and her company laptop, all those benefits she'd been so proud of earning that turned out to be nothing more than chains disguised as opportunities, ways for Dorian to keep his employees compliant and grateful and too dependent to ever push back.
She unlocked her door and stood in the entryway for a moment, looking at the space she'd lived in for two years without ever bothering to paint the walls or hang real art or do any of the things people did when they planned to stay somewhere, and she understood now why she'd never made it feel permanent, some part of her always knowing it could be taken away the moment she became inconvenient.
Her phone buzzed again and she finally looked at it, saw that Callum had stopped calling but Margot hadn't, and there was a voicemail from a number she didn't recognize, probably the same person who'd been texting her cryptic warnings about locks and safety and meetings at Westlight, whoever that was, whatever they wanted from her.
She moved through the apartment on autopilot, pulling her largest suitcase from the closet and throwing in clothes without folding them, grabbing toiletries from the bathroom and shoes from the rack by the door, working with the frantic energy of someone who knew the clock was ticking and couldn't afford to waste time on things like organization or sentiment.
The framed photo of her father caught her eye from the bookshelf, taken the summer before he died when she was sixteen and still believed that working hard and being good meant the universe would be fair to you, and she wrapped it carefully in a sweater before tucking it into the suitcase because that was the only thing in this apartment that actually mattered, the only thing that was truly hers.
Her laptop went in next, then the files she'd been stupid enough to bring home, client notes and market research and strategy documents that probably violated her employment contract but might be the only proof she had that she'd actually been good at her job, that she hadn't deserved what Dorian was doing to her.
The buzzing started again and this time it wasn't her phone but the intercom, the doorman's voice crackling through with obvious discomfort.
"Ms. Langford, there's someone here to see you. Says her name is Indie Chen and she's not leaving until you answer."
Thea's throat went tight because of course Indie would show up, would somehow know without being told that Thea was in trouble, that's what best friends did even when you'd been too busy climbing corporate ladders to return their calls for the last three weeks.
"Send her up," Thea managed, and then she was standing in her half-packed apartment waiting for the knock that came exactly two minutes later, sharp and insistent and so perfectly Indie that Thea almost started crying again.
She opened the door to find her best friend standing there in ripped jeans and an oversized puffer coat, her short hair streaked with the purple she'd been threatening to add since October, and her expression was somewhere between furious and devastated.
"You didn't call me," Indie said, which wasn't a question or an accusation but a statement of fact that hurt worse than either would have.
"I couldn't," Thea said, which was true even if it sounded like an excuse, because how do you call someone and tell them that everything you'd been working toward for three years had just imploded, that you'd been so focused on being perfect you'd missed every warning sign that your life was built on sand.
Indie looked past her into the apartment, took in the open suitcase and the scattered belongings and the obvious panic of someone packing to flee, and her face shifted into something harder and more protective.
"Margot called me," Indie said, walking in without waiting for invitation. "Said you left work early looking upset and wouldn't answer your phone. Then I called Callum because I figured maybe you two had a fight, and he answered on the first ring sounding guilty as hell, which told me everything I needed to know about what kind of fight it was."
"He told you," Thea said flatly.
"He didn't have to. I could hear it in his voice, that specific kind of guilty that means someone got caught doing something unforgivable." Indie kicked the door shut behind her. "So I'm going to ask you one question, and I need you to be honest with me. Did he cheat or did he do something worse?"
"Both," Thea heard herself say, and then she was telling Indie everything, the words spilling out in a rush that made her dizzy, about finding Callum with Sienna and the text messages from Dorian and the firing that was scheduled for Monday and the apartment she was about to lose and the mysterious person who'd been texting her warnings she didn't understand but knew enough to believe.
Indie listened without interrupting, her expression cycling through rage and disbelief and a kind of cold calculation that Thea had only seen a few times before, usually right before Indie did something dramatic and slightly illegal that somehow always worked out in the end.
"Show me the texts," Indie said when Thea finally stopped talking.
Thea handed over her phone and watched Indie scroll through the messages from the unknown number, her friend's face getting progressively more concerned with each one.
"This person knows too much," Indie said finally. "About your schedule, about Dorian's plans, about the apartment locks. This isn't some random Good Samaritan, Thea. This is someone with access to information they shouldn't have."
"I know," Thea said, taking the phone back. "But what if they're telling the truth? What if I stay here tonight and wake up tomorrow locked out with all my stuff inside?"
"Then you stay with me," Indie said immediately. "You pack what matters and we get out of here right now, and tomorrow we figure out what this Westlight meeting is about and whether you're walking into a trap or an opportunity."
Thea wanted to argue, wanted to say she couldn't impose or that she needed to handle this herself or any of the other proud stupid things she'd been saying her whole life about not needing help, but the truth was she was terrified and exhausted and so far beyond handling anything that the idea of letting someone else make decisions for the next twelve hours sounded like the closest thing to salvation she was going to get.
"Okay," she whispered, and Indie pulled her into a hug that smelled like cigarettes and vanilla perfume and safety, the kind of hug that said you're not alone even when everything else was saying the opposite.
They packed in silence after that, Indie moving through the apartment with the efficiency of someone who'd helped friends flee bad situations before, grabbing things Thea would have forgotten like her passport and her birth certificate and the jewelry box her mother had given her that she never wore but couldn't bear to leave behind.
By the time they finished it was almost eight, the sky outside gone full dark, and Thea stood in the doorway of the apartment taking one last look at the space that had never been home but had at least been hers, or had felt like it was hers, before today proved that nothing was ever really yours if someone else could take it away.
Her phone buzzed one more time as they loaded everything into Indie's car, another message from the unknown number that made Thea's blood run cold.
UNKNOWN: Good choice leaving tonight. They came early. The locks are already changed. Dorian's making sure you understand who has the power.
And then, before Thea could even process that, another message.
UNKNOWN: Westlight tomorrow. Eight PM. I'll be in the back corner booth. I'll be wearing a gray suit. Come alone or don't come at all.
UNKNOWN: And Thea? Don't trust anyone from Sterling. Not Margot, not the doorman, not anyone who knows where you are. Dorian has people everywhere.
Indie was watching her from the driver's seat, waiting, and Thea climbed in without showing her the phone because some instinct told her that sharing these messages would only make Indie insist on coming tomorrow, would turn whatever this meeting was into something more complicated and potentially more dangerous.
"You okay?" Indie asked, starting the engine.
"No," Thea said honestly, watching her building disappear in the side mirror. "But I will be."
It felt like a lie even as she said it, but maybe if she said it enough times it would become true, maybe survival was just pretending you were okay until eventually you forgot you were pretending.
They drove toward Astoria in silence while Thea stared at her phone, at that unknown number, at the messages that were either going to save her or destroy whatever was left of her life, and she tried not to think about the fact that in less than twenty-four hours she'd be meeting a stranger who knew too much about her worst day, sitting in some Williamsburg bar making decisions that would determine whether Monday's firing was the end of her story or just the beginning of something darker that she couldn't even see coming yet.
Her phone lit up one final time, and Thea looked down at the message that made her hands go numb.
UNKNOWN: PS - I know who Callum was sleeping with. And I know it wasn't the first intern. Ask yourself why Dorian never stopped him. Ask yourself what they were really protecting.
Thea stared at the words until they blurred, until Indie's voice asking if she was hungry felt like it was coming from underwater, and she understood with sick certainty that whatever she'd thought this was about, whatever simple story she'd been telling herself about a cheating boyfriend and a vindictive boss, she'd been wrong.
This was bigger than her job, bigger than Callum's affair and the person texting her knew exactly what it was.