Chapter 3: Will we ignore each-other forever?
The silence after her text was a physical weight. For three days, Liam moved through his penthouse like a ghost, the memory of her taste, her heat, a fever in his blood. He tried to work, but the lines on his drafting tablet blurred into the curve of a hip he’d held against the glass. On the fourth night, he returned to Eclipse, a different kind of desperation driving him now. He didn’t watch from the shadows. He took a front-row booth, his eyes scanning the stage not with wonder, but with a grim, clinical hunger. When a blonde in a red dress took the stage, his breath hitched. From a distance, the body was close enough—the swell of her breasts, the tease of her thighs. He paid for a private dance, cash shoved into the bouncer’s hand. In the dim, velvet-lined room, she straddled him, her perfume cloying and wrong. “You like that, baby?” she purred, grinding against his zipper. He grabbed her hips, his fingers digging in, but it was like holding smoke. He shoved her off, his voice a ragged curse. “Get out.” Alone, he slammed his fist into the plush wall, the impact a dull, satisfying thud. His phone buzzed in his pocket. Marco’s name flashed on the screen, a beacon from the world he was betraying. He stared at it, the light reflecting in his hollow eyes.
The vibration against his palm felt like a verdict. Marco never called this late unless it was about family, unless it was an emergency. Liam’s thumb hovered, slick with condensation from his abandoned whiskey glass, the ice long since melted into a watery regret. He saw Izzy’s face, flushed and furious against his window, then her face, serene and asleep on his chest, and a cold dread, sharper than any desire, slithered down his spine.
Had she told him? The thought was an ice pick to the gut. He imagined Marco’s voice, thick with betrayal, the end of a twenty-year friendship dissolving into static. Or worse, was she hurt? The image of her leaving his apartment, vulnerable and distracted, flashed behind his eyes. He let the call die. The screen went black, showing only his own fractured reflection. A second later, it lit up again, Marco’s name persistent, urgent. The silence in the room now felt accusatory. He answered, bringing the phone to his ear with a leaden arm. “Marco.” His voice was sandpaper.
The silence on the line stretched, thin and brittle. “Jesus, finally.” Marco’s voice was strained, not with anger, but with a worry that cut deeper. “I’ve been calling Izzy all night. She’s not answering.”
Relief, sour and immediate, flooded Liam’s veins—she hadn’t talked. Then, a new kind of dread, cold and slick, replaced it. “Maybe she’s out with friends,” he offered, the lie tasting of cheap whiskey and guilt.
“Her location’s off. That’s not her.” Marco exhaled, a harsh sound. “She’s been different since she got back. Distant. And you’ve been ghosting me. What the hell is going on?”
Liam’s gaze swept over the charcoal sketches, the empty glass, the ghost of her on his sheets. “Nothing’s going on.” The city lights outside blurred into a smear of gold. “I’ve just been working late. Maybe she is too.”
“Don’t bullshit me, Liam.” Marco’s tone shifted, hardening into the voice of a CEO, a brother. “I need you to check your security cameras. The ones facing the street. Now.”
Ice water replaced the blood in Liam’s limbs. He remembered the press of her body against the glass, the silhouette they must have made for anyone with the right angle to see. “Why?”
“Because her car’s been parked three blocks from your building since two a.m.,” Marco said, each word a precise, crushing blow. “And she’s not in it.”