The master bedroom was completely dark. The sound of Bartholomew's deep, even breathing filled the room. The alcohol had pulled him into a heavy sleep.

Casey pushed the bedroom door open. She did not turn on the lights. The neon glow from the Manhattan skyline spilled through the floor-to-ceiling windows, casting long shadows across the massive bed. She stood there for a few seconds, looking at the bed she had shared with him for five years. She felt absolutely nothing.

She turned and walked into the walk-in closet. It was the size of a small apartment. She walked past his rows of custom suits and stopped at her side of the room.

She opened the glass doors. Dozens of haute couture gowns and limited-edition Hermes bags lined the shelves. These were her uniforms. Bartholomew had bought them so she would look like a proper Hendricks wife at charity galas.

She ignored the expensive fabrics. She dropped to her knees and reached into the very back corner of the bottom shelf. She grabbed the handle of a scuffed, black fabric suitcase. It was the same suitcase she had brought with her five years ago.

She dragged it out and unzipped it. She opened the bottom drawer of the dresser and pulled out five plain cotton t-shirts and two pairs of faded denim jeans. She threw them into the suitcase. She grabbed her thick, heavy laptop from the top shelf and placed it carefully on top of the clothes.

She walked into the master bathroom. She grabbed her face wash and her cheap moisturizer. She looked at the two electric toothbrushes sitting in the marble holder. She grabbed hers and threw it directly into the metal trash can.

Ten minutes later, she zipped the suitcase shut. She lifted it by the handle. It was incredibly light. Five years of marriage, and this was all she was taking.

She rolled the suitcase out of the closet and stopped next to Bartholomew's side of the bed. She looked down at his sleeping face.

She lifted her left hand. Her fingers were stiff. She grabbed the five-carat diamond ring on her ring finger and pulled. The metal slid over her knuckle.

She placed the ring onto the black marble nightstand. The heavy diamond hit the stone with a sharp, high-pitched click. The sound was tiny, but to Casey, it sounded like a lock finally snapping open.

She opened her wallet and pulled out the black Centurion credit card Bartholomew had given her. She slid the plastic card directly under the diamond ring.

She did not look at him again. She grabbed the handle of her suitcase, walked out of the bedroom, and pulled the door shut until it clicked.

She walked down the hallway and slipped into the small guest bedroom. She set the suitcase down and opened her laptop.

The screen lit up her face in the dark room. She opened her browser and typed in a complex string of passwords. She bypassed three layers of security and logged into a hidden, encrypted email server. It was a system she had painstakingly built, utilizing multiple offshore proxies and shell accounts to ensure her digital footprint was entirely untraceable by the Hendricks family's vast intelligence network. The account name at the top read: Bedlam.

Her inbox was flooded with unread messages. They were all heavily encrypted forwards from her trusted literary agent and legal representative, containing dozens of lucrative letters of intent from top Hollywood producers and major publishing houses who were begging for a chance to bid on her work. She ignored all of them.

She clicked on a new email draft. The recipient was the most ruthless divorce attorney in Manhattan. Her fingers flew across the keyboard.

She typed the terms of the divorce. She explicitly stated she was waiving all rights to spousal support. She demanded a zero-asset split. She wanted the divorce filed immediately under the terms of the prenuptial agreement.

She hit send. The loading bar flashed across the screen and disappeared. The email was gone.

Casey closed the laptop and shoved it into her backpack. She grabbed her suitcase and walked to the front entrance of the penthouse.

The door to the servant's quarters opened. Maureen, the senior housekeeper, stepped out wearing a thick wool robe. Maureen saw the suitcase and gasped. She slapped both hands over her mouth.

Maureen rushed forward. She grabbed Casey's arm.

"Mrs. Hendricks, please," Maureen whispered frantically. "Do not do this. Do not leave in the middle of the night. Mr. Hendricks will be furious tomorrow."

Casey looked at the older woman. Maureen was the only person in this house who had ever offered her a glass of water when she was sick. Casey offered her a small, genuine smile.

She gently pulled her arm out of Maureen's grip.

"I am not coming back, Maureen," Casey said softly.

She reached into her pocket and pulled out the heavy metal key to the penthouse. She placed it gently into the silver tray on the console table.

"Take care of yourself," Casey said. "You do not need to leave the door unlocked."

Casey turned around and pressed her thumb against the biometric scanner. The heavy steel door unlocked. She stepped out into the hallway and the door slammed shut behind her, sealing off the penthouse forever.

She stepped into the elevator and pressed the lobby button. The elevator dropped fast. The sudden loss of gravity made her stomach float. For the first time in five years, she felt like she could breathe. The crushing weight on her chest was gone.

She walked out of the luxury building and onto the sidewalk. It was two in the morning. The rain had turned into a light, freezing drizzle. The wind whipped the bottom of her trench coat around her legs.

She did not call the private family driver. She dragged her suitcase to the corner of the street and raised her hand.

A beat-up yellow taxi swerved to the curb and stopped. Casey opened the back door and threw her suitcase onto the seat. She climbed in and slammed the door.

The driver looked at her in the rearview mirror. "Where to, lady?" he asked in a thick Brooklyn accent.

Casey gave him the address of a cheap apartment complex in Brooklyn. It was where her best friend, Paige, lived.

The taxi pulled away from the curb. Casey leaned her head against the cold glass of the window. She watched the towering, glittering skyscrapers of Manhattan slowly fade away behind her. She closed her eyes and smiled.

The morning sun pierced through the gap in the heavy blackout curtains. The bright light hit Bartholomew directly in the eyes. He groaned and rolled over on the massive mattress. His head throbbed with a vicious hangover.

He reached his arm out across the bed. He expected his hand to hit Casey's warm shoulder. He expected her to curl into his chest the way she always did.

His hand hit empty space. The bedsheets were completely cold.

Bartholomew frowned. He opened his eyes and pushed himself up onto his elbows. He looked around the empty room.

"Casey," he called out. His voice was thick and raspy from the alcohol.

No one answered. The penthouse was dead silent.

He threw the heavy duvet off his legs and swung his feet onto the floor. He stood up and rubbed his temples. As he turned toward the bathroom, his eyes caught a flash of light on the black marble nightstand.

He stopped breathing.

The five-carat diamond ring sat perfectly centered on the table. Underneath the ring was the black Centurion credit card.

Bartholomew stared at the objects. His chest tightened. He snatched the ring off the table. The metal bit into his palm. He turned and marched straight into the walk-in closet. He grabbed the handle of Casey's wardrobe door and yanked it open.

All the expensive dresses were still hanging there. The designer bags were untouched. But the bottom corner of the shelf was empty. Her cheap clothes were gone. The old suitcase was gone.

Maureen appeared in the doorway of the bedroom. She kept her head bowed and her hands clasped tightly in front of her.

"Sir," Maureen said, her voice trembling. "Mrs. Hendricks left at two in the morning. She took her luggage."

Bartholomew let out a harsh, barking laugh. He threw the diamond ring onto the vanity table. It bounced off the wood and hit the mirror with a loud crack.

"She thinks this will work," Bartholomew muttered to himself. He clenched his jaw. He was convinced this was just an escalation of her tantrum from last night. She wanted him to chase her.

He grabbed his phone from the charger. He found her contact and pressed call. He pressed the phone hard against his ear.

A cold, automated female voice immediately answered. "The number you have dialed is unavailable."

She had blocked him.

Bartholomew's face turned dark red. He gripped the phone so hard his knuckles popped. He waited for the beep of the voicemail.

"Listen to me very carefully," Bartholomew snarled into the phone. "You have until tonight to stop this childish game and come home. If you do not walk through that door by eight o'clock, I will freeze every single account attached to your name. You will have nothing."

He ended the call and threw the phone onto the bed. He ripped his bathrobe off and walked into the shower. He needed to get to the office.

Across the river in Brooklyn, the air inside the small, crowded coffee shop smelled like roasted beans and burnt toast. The morning sun warmed the wooden table near the window.

Casey sat in a hard wooden chair. She was wearing a loose gray hoodie and her faded jeans. She took a massive bite out of a warm bagel. Her eyes were bright. Her skin looked alive.

Paige sat across from her. Paige slid a tall iced oat milk latte across the table.

"To your escape from the gilded prison," Paige said, grinning widely.

Casey picked up the plastic cup and tapped it against Paige's coffee. Before she could take a sip, her phone lit up on the table. A notification popped up: New Voicemail from Blocked Number.

Casey set her coffee down. She tapped the screen and pressed the speaker button.

Bartholomew's angry, arrogant voice filled the small space between them. He threatened to freeze her accounts. He demanded she come home.

Paige's jaw dropped. Her face turned bright red with anger. She opened her mouth to scream insults at the phone.

Casey simply smiled. She reached out and tapped the delete icon. The voicemail vanished. She went into her settings and permanently deleted his contact file.

She opened her heavy laptop and logged into the Bedlam server.

She clicked on the top email. It was from the head of a massive Hollywood production company. They were offering to double their previous bid to buy the film rights to her bestselling thriller, West of Yesterday.

Casey placed her fingers on the keyboard. She typed a fast, aggressive reply. She refused the buyout. She demanded to be named the Executive Producer with full creative control, or there would be no deal.

Paige leaned over the table and squinted at the screen. She saw the dollar amount in the email chain. Paige choked on her coffee and started coughing violently.

"You are a millionaire?" Paige wheezed, staring at Casey in pure shock. "You have been playing the broke housewife this whole time?"

Casey closed the laptop with a loud snap. She picked up her bagel and took another bite. The ambition in her eyes was sharp and dangerous.

At the exact same moment, in the towering Hendricks Group building in Manhattan, Cash Bass knocked on the heavy oak door of the CEO's office.

Cash pushed the door open. He was sweating through his suit. Bartholomew was sitting behind his massive desk, glaring at his computer screen.

"Sir," Cash stammered. "I checked the accounts. Mrs. Hendricks has not swiped a single card since yesterday afternoon."

Bartholomew stopped writing. He pressed the tip of his expensive fountain pen into the document he was signing. The ink bled out, creating a dark, ugly stain on the paper.

"And the cars?" Bartholomew asked coldly.

"She didn't take any of them," Cash swallowed hard. "Security footage shows her walking out of the building on foot. She hailed a yellow cab three blocks away. We've lost the trail for now. She paid in cash and got out at a crowded subway station in Brooklyn, intentionally mixing into the blind spots. It will take our team a bit more time to manually analyze the city's surveillance network to pinpoint her exact location."

Bartholomew slowly lifted his head. The pen snapped in his hand. A cold, unfamiliar sensation crawled up his spine. It was the feeling of total loss of control. He stared out the window at the city below, his eyes turning viciously dark.

The radiator in Paige's small Brooklyn apartment clanked loudly. It was twelve-thirty in the morning. Casey sat cross-legged on the lumpy fabric sofa. She had her laptop balanced on her knees. She was aggressively typing out the revised character arcs for the new script.

Her phone suddenly vibrated against the cheap glass coffee table. The screen lit up the dark room. A custom ringtone started playing. It was the ringtone she had assigned to Bartholomew's aunt, Genevieve Hendricks.

Casey stopped typing. Her eyebrows pulled together. Genevieve hated her and never called her. Something was wrong.

Casey picked up the phone and swiped the green button.

"Hello?" Casey said.

"Where is he?!" Genevieve shrieked into the phone. The sound was so loud and sharp that Casey had to pull the phone away from her ear. "Where are you hiding Bartholomew? We have been calling him for two hours!"

Casey kept her voice completely level. "I am not with him. What happened?"

"Preston collapsed!" Genevieve sobbed loudly, her voice cracking with panic. "He had a massive heart attack. He is in the emergency room. Find Bartholomew right now!"

Casey's stomach dropped. The blood drained from her face. Preston Hendricks was Bartholomew's grandfather. He was the only person in that entire snake pit of a family who had ever spoken to her with respect.

"I will find him," Casey said firmly. She hung up the phone before Genevieve could scream again.

Casey immediately opened her blocked list. She unblocked Bartholomew's number and dialed it. The phone rang once and went straight to a dead tone. He had blocked her back.

She cursed under her breath. She opened her contacts and found Cash Bass's private number. She pressed call.

The phone rang six times. Finally, Cash answered. His voice was thick with sleep and heavy irritation.

"Mrs. Hendricks, it is the middle of the night," Cash groaned.

"Cash, listen to me very carefully," Casey said, her voice dropping into a desperate, intense plea that left no room for corporate protocol. "Preston is dying in the hospital. This is his only grandfather, the absolute foundation of the Hendricks family. If you do not give me that address, and Bartholomew misses his grandfather's final moments because you wanted to play the loyal secretary, he will live with that regret for the rest of his life. And when he realizes you kept it from him, the responsibility will fall entirely on your shoulders. Please, Cash. Tell me where he is, I am begging you."

The line went dead silent. Cash sucked in a sharp breath. The corporate loyalty completely shattered under the threat of life and death.

"Upper East Side," Cash said quickly. He rattled off an address on 73rd Street.

Casey ended the call. She knew that address. Bartholomew had used his private trust fund to buy that luxury townhouse for Halie Haynes.

Casey grabbed her gray trench coat off the back of the chair. She shoved her arms into the sleeves and pulled her hair back into a messy ponytail.

Paige walked out of the bedroom, rubbing her eyes. "What is going on?"

"Family emergency," Casey said quickly as she shoved her feet into her boots. "I have to go."

"Let me drive you," Paige offered, reaching for her keys.

"No," Casey said. "Stay out of this mess. Go back to sleep."

Casey ran out of the apartment and sprinted down the narrow stairs. She pushed the front door open and stepped out into the freezing Brooklyn night. The wind hit her face like a physical slap.

She stood on the curb and waved frantically at the empty street. It took her ten minutes to find an Uber willing to cross the bridge into Manhattan at this hour. She had to pay triple the normal rate.

She climbed into the back seat of the sedan. "Upper East Side. Drive as fast as you legally can," she told the driver.

The car sped across the bridge. Casey stared out the window. She tried to call Bartholomew's number one more time. It was still blocked. A bitter, acidic taste rose in the back of her throat. She was racing across the city to save his relationship with his dying grandfather, while he was hiding in his mistress's bed, ignoring the world.

The car pulled onto the quiet, tree-lined street of the Upper East Side. The driver stopped in front of a massive, three-story brick townhouse.

Casey pushed the door open and stepped out onto the sidewalk. The cold wind whipped her hair around her face.

She looked at the curb. A sleek, black Maybach was parked directly in front of the iron gates. The license plate was Bartholomew's. Cash had told the truth.

Casey looked up. The second-floor window was glowing with warm yellow light. Through the sheer curtains, she could see two shadows moving close together.

Casey stood under the streetlamp. She stared at the window. Her chest felt tight, but she forced herself to take a deep breath of the freezing air. She pushed the nausea down into her stomach.

She walked forward. Her boots clicked loudly against the pavement. She marched up the marble steps of the townhouse, lifted her hand, and pressed her finger hard against the doorbell.