Now, thick, crimson ribbons soaked through my gray cashmere robe, staining the pristine grout lines of our twenty-four-million-dollar Pacific Heights mansion.
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My phone lay on the floor six inches from my lips, its screen illuminated with the digital call log of nine outgoing attempts.
One.
Three.
Seven.
On the ninth call, the ringing abruptly ceased with a crisp, indifferent click.
A wall of brass horns, champagne laughter, and rhythmic crystal applause rushed through the earpiece. The ambient sound was unmistakable: the grand penthouse ballroom of the Bellamy Hotel overlooking the San Francisco bay.
“Natalie?” Marcus’s voice cut through the background music, brisk, distracted, and razor-sharp with executive impatience.
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“Marcus,” I whispered, tasting the salt of my own tears and the copper on my lip where I had bitten down against the agony:
“I’m bleeding.”
There was a half-second pause on the line—not the silence of a husband stricken by terror, but the calculated hesitation of a CEO evaluating an inconvenient interruption during a board vote.
