Chapter 2 - Everything Expensive Stayed Behind
At 6:08 the next morning, Arthur found Nico sitting on the floor of the walk-in closet.
Not a chair.
Not the edge of the bed.
The floor.
Arthur had known Nico for seventeen years and had seen him remain calm through raids, betrayals, arrests, broken deals, and funerals.
He had never seen him sitting helplessly beside a row of women’s shoes.
“You need sleep,” Arthur said.
Nico ignored him.
In his hand was the black titanium credit card.
“She left this.”
Arthur leaned against the doorway.
“Yes.”
“The jewelry.”
“Yes.”
“Every bag.”
Arthur nodded.
“She took the boots I hated.”
That nearly sounded absurd.
Arthur did not smile.
Nico lifted his eyes.
“Why?”
“Because they were hers before you.”
Something tightened in Nico’s jaw.
“I bought her things.”
“I know.”
“Everything she wanted.”
Arthur’s expression changed.
“That’s the problem, Nico. You still think those sentences mean the same thing.”
Nico stood.
Within an hour, Chicago began moving for him.
Calls went out.
Private investigators were contacted.
Train stations checked.
Hotels quietly questioned.
Airport manifests examined through people who owed Nico favors.
Taxi cameras.
Traffic cameras.
Hospitals.
Rental agencies.
No police report.
A police report would require admitting that an adult woman had voluntarily left her own home, and Nico refused to hear the word voluntarily.
At 8:30, one of his men entered the study.
“No cards used.”
“Cash withdrawal?”
“Nothing.”
“Her accounts?”
“Dormant.”
Nico looked up.
“She has an account?”
The man hesitated.
Arthur shut his eyes briefly.
Of course she had an account.
A life before Nico did not cease to have existed just because Nico had stopped asking about it.
“She has an old personal checking account,” the man said. “Balance is low. No activity this morning.”
“How low?”
“Eleven hundred.”
Nico stared at him.
He had watches worth fifty times that amount.
Norah had access to millions.
And she had walked away carrying less money than he spent on a weekend dinner.
“Find her.”
The man left.
Arthur remained.
“You planning to drag her back?”
Nico’s eyes became dangerous.
“No.”
“Good.”
“I’m going to talk to her.”
“And if she doesn’t want to talk?”
Nico didn’t answer.
Arthur walked closer.
“You said you wouldn’t care.”
“I know what I said.”
“No. You know the words. That’s different.”
Nico’s hand tightened around the edge of the desk.
Arthur continued.
“She didn’t leave because she believed you hated her.”
That made Nico look up.
“She left because she believed you meant it.”
For the first time all morning, anger disappeared from Nico’s face.
What remained looked worse.
Fear.
Meanwhile, I bought a prepaid phone.
I stood inside a convenience store wearing my gray hoodie and selected the cheapest model on the shelf.
The employee activated it.
“Need to transfer your old number?”
“No.”
“Contacts?”
“No.”
He shrugged.
Fresh number.
Fresh device.
No cloud account.
I wrote one number on a napkin.
Elena Reyes.
We hadn’t spoken in nearly two years.
Before Nico, Elena and I had worked together at a small commercial design firm near River North.
She had been my closest friend.
Then I started canceling lunches.
Then birthdays.
Then calls.
Not because Nico ordered me to.
That would have been easier to recognize.
I simply began organizing my entire life around his unpredictability.
Eventually, people stopped inviting me.
Elena had been the last to stop.
My finger hovered above the call button.
Then I pressed it.
She answered on the fourth ring.
“Hello?”
“Elena?”
Silence.
“Norah?”
My eyes burned.
“Yeah.”
“Where the hell have you been?”
I almost apologized.
Instead I said, “Can I see you?”
Another pause.
“Are you safe?”
The question broke something inside me.
“Yes.”
“Did he hurt you?”
“No.”
That answer was true, though suddenly I understood how incomplete the word hurt could be.
“Where are you?”
“Downtown.”
“Stay there.”
Twenty-seven minutes later, Elena walked through the diner door wearing a red coat and fury on her face.
She stopped when she saw me.
Her anger vanished.
“Oh, Norah.”
I stood.
We didn’t speak.
She hugged me.
For the first time that night, I cried.
Not gracefully.
Not one cinematic tear.
Three years came out against the shoulder of a woman I had abandoned because loving Nico had gradually replaced every other part of me.
Elena held me until the waitress quietly placed more napkins beside us.
Afterward, Elena sat opposite me.
“Start wherever you can.”
So I told her.
Not everything.
Not yet.
Just the study.
Arthur.
The sentence.
The bag.
The elevator.
When I finished, Elena stared at me.
“And you left everything?”
“Yes.”
“Jewelry?”
“Yes.”
“Money?”
“Yes.”
“That ridiculous black card?”
I almost smiled.
“You remember it?”
“You bought coffee with it once. The barista looked terrified.”
Despite everything, I laughed.
It hurt.
Elena reached across the table.
“You can stay with me.”
“No.”
“Norah—”
“I love you for asking. But I need to do this differently.”
“Do what?”
“Stand on my own feet.”
She studied me.
“You don’t have to prove anything.”
“I know.”
And for the first time, I meant it.
“I need a cheap hotel for a few nights. Then a job.”
“A job?”
“I used to have one.”
A shadow crossed Elena’s face.
“You used to be very good at it.”
That sentence followed me for the rest of the morning.
You used to be very good at it.
Not pretty.
Not Nico’s woman.
Not the person waiting by the window.
Good at something.
By noon, Elena had helped me find a weekly rental in a neighborhood where Nico would never imagine me choosing to stay.
It was small.
The radiator rattled.
The carpet was old.
The window faced a brick wall.
I loved it.
I put my black bag on the bed.
Everything I owned fit inside it.
And somehow, I felt lighter than I had in the penthouse.
At 12:17, my new phone rang.
Unknown number.
My body froze.
Only three people had the number.
The store employee.
Elena.
And me.
It rang again.
I answered but said nothing.
For several seconds, neither did the caller.
Then a voice I knew better than my own breathing whispered:
“Norah.”
Nico.
My hand tightened around the phone.
“How did you get this number?”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.”
Silence.
Then he said, “Come home.”
Not I’m sorry.
Not can we talk.
Come home.
And suddenly I understood that Nico had found me physically.
But emotionally, he still had no idea where I had gone.
I looked around the tiny room.
“No.”
One word.
The first one I had ever given him that contained no apology.
Nico went silent.
I disconnected the call.
And across Chicago, a man who could command hundreds of people was forced to confront the first order I had ever refused.
He would not handle it well.
May you like
But neither would I be the woman who made it easy for him anymore.
---
