Chapter 2

Jess and I met during a Blackwood charity gala five years ago. A sudden power outage threw the ballroom into chaos. I was a temp, helping with event coordination. While others panicked, I found the emergency generator schematics on my tablet and guided the building engineer. Jess, then just 22, watched me. When the lights came back on, she walked straight over.

"You're hired," she said, a small smile playing on her lips. "Anyone who can handle that mess can handle my father."

It was the beginning of everything. She became my staunchest supporter, my fiercest friend. I became her rock, her strategist.

Last night, Jess called me, her voice a thin thread.

"Maya, I can't do this anymore."

"What happened?"

"Father. He… he found out about Dr. Chen. The fertility specialist I was consulting."

My blood ran cold. "What did he do?"

"He had her clinic audited. Threatened her license. She called me, terrified. He told me if I pursued it further, he' d ensure I never had a chance. He said… he said my mother' s family had rival business interests, and he wouldn't risk a child being influenced by them if I chose the 'wrong' father or went it alone."

The cruelty of it was staggering. "Jess, that' s monstrous."

"It' s Tuesday for him," she said, a bitter laugh escaping her. "I confronted him. He just stared at me. Said a Blackwood grandchild would be an asset, but only on his terms. He even… he even mentioned that he' d recently 'allowed' a treatment that supposedly restored my fertility, after years of him subtly ensuring it was suppressed. Like he' s granting me a favor he can control."

My own breaking point had been simmering for months, the cold emptiness of my marriage with Liam becoming unbearable. His distance felt like a physical barrier.

"Jess," I said, my voice low. "I can't stay with Liam. This isn't a marriage. It's a sentence."

"Oh, Maya," she whispered. "I' m so sorry. I thought… I hoped he would be different. That he would see you."

"He sees a responsibility, maybe. An assignment from your father. Nothing more."

A silence settled between us, thick with shared despair.

Then Jess spoke, her voice gaining a strange strength. "We need to disappear, Maya."

I sat up straighter. "Disappear?"

"Completely. Start over. New identities. He has money, I have money. We can go somewhere remote. Aspen, maybe. Live like normal people. Free."

The idea was terrifying. And exhilarating.

"How, Jess? Your father has eyes everywhere. Liam…"

"We fake it," she said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "Our deaths."

I stared at the phone. Fake our deaths? It was insane. It was desperate.

It was perfect.

"Okay," I said, a surge of adrenaline coursing through me. "Okay, Jess. Let's do it."

We spent the next week in a flurry of secret calls and encrypted messages. Jess was a surprisingly good plotter when motivated by her own freedom. She had access to offshore accounts, contacts who specialized in creating new identities.

"We'll need a clean break," she said. "No trail. I' ll stage a disappearance from a wellness retreat. You… you need something more permanent-looking."

"An accident," I said, my mind racing. "A hiking accident. Plausible. I go hiking alone sometimes."

"The timing needs to be staggered," Jess planned. "You first. Then me, a few days later. It' ll look like two separate tragedies."

We talked about money, about new names, about the quiet life we' d build. For the first time in years, I felt a flicker of hope. A dangerous, wild hope.