Chapter 94
Chapter 94:
Now.
She pulled the handbrake. Slowly, then hard.
The car spun 180 degrees, the world outside a kaleidoscope of guardrails and headlights. It came to a stop inches—mere inches—from the barrier.
Silence.
Skye sat there, her chest heaving, her hands trembling so violently she could not unclench them from the wheel. The smell of burnt rubber and overheated clutch filled the cabin.
She forced herself to breathe. In. Out.
She opened the door and stumbled out. Her legs felt like jelly. She dropped to her knees on the gravel and looked under the car.
Even in the dark, with only the flashlight from her phone, she saw it. The cut was clean. Deliberate. Fluid was still dripping, a slow, rhythmic countdown.
This was not an accident. It was an execution.
She didn’t call the police. The police meant reports. Reports meant Liam would know. If Liam knew, he would cover it up to protect the family name, or worse, blame her driving.
She called a private number. “Send a flatbed to Exit 4B. Take the car to the Oracle garage. Do not log it into the system p>
Twenty minutes later, she was in a backup car—an nondescript black sedan kept at the safe house.
She didn’t drive to the Manor. She drove to the Azure Bay complex, but she didn’t turn toward the main tower or the sales office. She navigated around the back, past the overflowing dumpsters, to the service entrance of Building B—the Annex.
This was where Liam was staying. The address was burned into her mind from the investigative report Alistair had sent her. It was the only place he could afford with his trust frozen and his salary garnished.
The hallways smelled of boiled cabbage and damp carpet. The fluorescent light above Unit 2B flickered with a maddening buzz.
E𝗻𝗷оy r𝖾𝖺𝘥𝘪𝘯𝗴 𝘭е𝘨𝘢𝗅𝗹y 𝗈𝗻 𝗯𝘦𝘭𝗻𝘰vе𝗅𝗌.𝖼о𝗺
Skye didn’t knock. She picked the cheap lock in under ten seconds.
Skye walked in. Her hair was windblown, her black dress dusty from the gravel, but her eyes were burning with a cold, blue fire.
The apartment was a shoebox. A beige, particle-board sofa sat unevenly on the linoleum floor. A window-unit air conditioner rattled violently in the single window, blocking the view of the brick wall five feet away. Piles of unopened mail and takeout containers littered the small counter.
It was a room devoid of dignity, let alone the Kensington legacy.
Liam was sitting on the edge of the lumpy sofa, a glass of cheap whiskey in his hand. His tie was undone, his suit jacket thrown carelessly over a folding chair. He looked up, startled by her sudden appearance in this squalid sanctuary.
“Skye? Where did you go? I tried to follow you, but p>
She didn’t speak. She reached into her bag and pulled out the divorce agreements she had drafted days ago, the ones she had kept in the safe, just in case.
She threw them onto the scratched laminate coffee table. The papers landed with a heavy thud, sliding across the surface to knock against his glass.
“Sign it,” she said.
Liam looked at the bold letters: DISSOLUTION OF MARRIAGE.