Strip off that coat and go clear dirty plates in the banquet hall, Nia—you're staff tonight, not family, my mother-in-law Evelyn snapped, her voice echoing across the candlelit grand ballroom.
I spent the next two days moving between forgotten safe-houses Deacon had outlined on his map – derelict apartments in fading commercial districts, abandoned storefronts near the old railyards. Each had a distinct smell of dust and forgotten lives, but they offered a temporary reprieve from Evelyn’s hunters.
My burner phone, secured with a rotating VPN, rang with an unknown number. I hesitated, then answered.
“Nia?” Marcus’s voice, soft and hesitant, crackled through the line. “It’s me. Don’t hang up.”
I clenched my jaw. After the gala, after the humiliation, after his mother’s smear campaign, he had the gall to call.
“What do you want, Marcus?” My voice was flat, devoid of the emotion I still felt churning inside.
“I know what she’s doing,” he said, a frantic edge to his tone. “The fliers, the messages. It’s insane, Nia. She’s gone too far.”
He launched into a practiced speech, a torrent of remorse. He claimed his mother had forced him to treat me horribly, that he’d always loved me, that he wanted to run away and start over. With me.
“Just meet me,” he pleaded. “Under the underground parking garage near Five Points. Come alone. I can get us out. We can disappear with a fresh start.”
A hollow ache formed in my chest. Part of me, a foolish, broken part, wanted to believe him. Wanted to cling to the ghost of the man I once married.
But my eyes scanned the alley outside the dusty window of my current hideout. A dark, unmarked SUV was idling down the street, its windows tinted. Too coincidental.
“Fine,” I said, forcing a calm into my voice. “Ten minutes.”
I grabbed the metal dispatch box, secured it in my bag, and added a small package I’d found in one of Deacon’s safe-houses: high-intensity signal flares, usually used for maritime distress.
The underground parking garage was damp and cavernous, the air thick with exhaust fumes. Marcus stood by his usual black sedan, looking anxious, his eyes darting around.
“Nia,” he breathed, relief washing over his face as I approached. He reached for me, but I stepped back.
“The box, Nia,” he urged, his gaze fixed on my backpack. “Give me the box. We can make a run for it, but she can’t find those papers.”
That was it. The real reason. Not love, not remorse. Just the box.
Then, from behind him, two figures detached themselves from the shadows near a support pillar. Big Fluker, unmistakable, and another heavy-set enforcer. They moved with slow, predatory grace toward me. The unmarked SUV I’d seen earlier rolled silently to a stop at the garage entrance, blocking any escape.
Marcus’s eyes widened, a flicker of panic. He hadn’t expected them to show themselves so soon.
“Marcus,” I said, my voice low and venomous. “You’re pathetic.”
Before he could react, I ripped the signal flares from my bag, twisted the caps, and ignited both with a fierce crackle. Bright, blinding red light erupted, searing white-hot smoke filling the enclosed space.
“Get down!” Fluker roared, shielding his eyes.
I didn’t wait. As the enforcers staggered, disoriented by the sudden, intense light and thick smoke, I sprinted for the nearest service stairwell, disappearing into the labyrinthine tunnels that connected to the underground MARTA lines. The screams of my name, the frantic shouts, quickly faded behind me as I plunged deeper into the dark.
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