Find out what comes next as the story continues in the following chapter.

The coastal town in Maine was the polar opposite of the brownstone. It was a place of salt air, creaky porches, and quiet, unhurried lives. We lived in a small, cedar-shingled cottage perched on a bluff overlooking the Atlantic, the sound of the waves providing a constant, soothing rhythm to our days.

I’d used the last of the cash I’d liberated from Alex’s account to buy the cottage, keeping everything off the grid, everything under the name Elena Thorne.

Chloe thrived. She spent her days exploring the tide pools, her nights drawing pictures of whales and lighthouses, her fears fading with every passing month. She didn't talk about the lodge, or the brownstone, or the lady who had made her stay in her room. She was just a little girl, growing up in the sun.

I worked as a librarian in the small town, a quiet life that allowed me to spend my evenings with Chloe. I wore my hair shorter now, my clothes practical and plain, my past a carefully guarded secret that lived only in the ledger I’d kept in a hidden compartment in the cottage’s floorboards.

Sometimes, at night, I would sit on the porch and listen to the ocean, wondering if they were still looking for me. I wondered if Volkov had ever recovered, if Oliver had ever found another placeholder to fill his empty spaces.

But then I’d hear Chloe’s gentle, steady breathing from her room, and the fear would vanish.

I had won.

But winning had a cost. Every time I looked in the mirror, I saw the ghost of the woman I used to be—the woman who had believed in love, who had believed in safety, who had believed in the script.

I was a new woman now. Hardened by the cold, sharpened by the betrayal, and forged in the fire of my own survival.

The town was small enough that I knew everyone, and everyone knew me. They knew "Elena," the quiet librarian who liked long walks on the beach and who always bought the same brand of tea. They didn't know about the Syndicate, or the ledger, or the brownstone.

They didn't need to.

I was the only one who carried the burden of the truth. And I was happy to carry it, if it meant they never had to.

One afternoon, a man walked into the library. He was tall, wearing a heavy wool coat, his face obscured by a scarf. He walked straight to the reference desk, his gaze scanning the shelves with a familiar, predatory intensity.

My heart froze.

He stopped at the desk, looking at me.

"I'm looking for a book on history," he said, his voice deep and smooth.

I looked up. It wasn't Alex. It wasn't Oliver. It was a stranger.

"What kind of history?" I asked, my voice steady.

"The kind that doesn't stay buried," he said, and for a moment, his eyes were the color of the Atlantic—cold, deep, and unreadable.

I felt a chill race down my spine.

"I'm afraid we don't carry that kind of history," I said.

He smiled, a slow, dangerous expression. "I'll keep looking."

He turned and walked out, the bell over the door chiming as he exited.

I looked at the shelf he had been scanning. It was the section on law and criminality.

I stared at the empty space where he had stood.