Part 2: “Claire Bennett.”

He repeated it once, softly, as if testing how it sounded in his mouth.

The next day, he came back.

Then the next.

By the end of the month, he was sending a car for her after work. By the end of the year, she had stopped going to after-hours gallery events because Dominic disliked crowded rooms where he didn’t control every exit. By the second year, she had quit the job she loved because he said she was too talented to spend her life cleaning rich people’s paintings.

He paid her rent.

Then he moved her into the penthouse.

Then, slowly, the world outside him faded.

Now she stood under the rusted awning of a four-story walk-up, soaked through her coat, holding the key her old college roommate, Jenna Rhodes, had left under the mat.

Jenna was in Seattle for three months, working on a documentary project. When Claire called from the taxi, crying so hard she could barely speak, Jenna had said only, “The apartment’s empty. Go there. Stay as long as you need.”

The apartment was on the third floor. Small. Drafty. A pullout couch. A tiny kitchen. A bathroom mirror with a crack in the corner. A radiator that clanged like something trapped inside the wall.

It was not beautiful.

But the door locked.

When Claire turned the deadbolt, the sound nearly broke her…
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