Melanie woke up feeling the suffocating weight of her new reality. She needed space, air, and distance from the tight, four-person drama unfolding in the Parisian flat.
That afternoon, she decided to walk to a local pharmacy to pick up some toiletries, a small, solitary errand meant to ground her.
She was crossing a quiet side street in the 6th Arrondissement, her mind still preoccupied with the frustrating logistics of the Ascendant merger draft, which was currently stalled. She stepped off the curb, checking the traffic, but she was not fast enough.
A dark gray sedan, moving far too fast for the narrow street, swerved suddenly toward her. The horn blared, a sickening, sharp sound that sliced through the quiet afternoon. Melanie reacted on pure instinct, the old survival training kicking in. She threw herself backward, slamming hard against the wrought-iron railing of a building facade. The sedan, barely missing her by inches, screeched past and sped away without slowing down.
Melanie stayed crouched for a moment, her heart hammering against her ribs, the scent of hot asphalt and burning rubber acrid in the air. This was not a typical Parisian near-miss. The speed, the deliberate swerve, it felt aggressive, targeted. She recognized the chilling, professional signature of danger, the same insidious threat that had stalked them during the corporate war. She felt a cold dread: Someone is still watching me. Someone wants me out of the picture.
Back at the flat, just as Melanie was trying to process the encounter, Rhys received a frantic call.
"Rhys, you need to come to the American Hospital immediately! It's Eliza!"
Rhys, already stressed, grabbed his jacket. "What happened? Is Gabriel okay?"
"Gabriel is fine, thank God," Eliza's voice, sounding weak and panicked, came through the line. "But I... I had this awful dizzy spell. The doctors are running tests. They think it's stress-related, but they need someone here to speak to them about my history. Please, Rhys, I don't have anyone else."
Melanie offered to go, but Rhys was already halfway out the door, his face etched with worry. "I have to go, Mel. She's alone, and I'm responsible for her now, for Gabriel's sake. Just lock up, please."
He didn't wait for her reply. He saw only Eliza, the mother of his son, suddenly fragile and needing him in a hospital setting. The guilt of his seven-year absence fueled his immediate, desperate loyalty.
Melanie was left alone, sitting in the silence of the apartment, the scrape marks on her elbow still stinging. She knew the truth, even if Rhys didn't: The near-accident was no coincidence. She was a threat, and someone was trying to remove her. Eliza's "emergency" was a diversion. It was a high-stakes, emotional maneuver to ensure Rhys was focused entirely on her and their history, isolating him from Melanie exactly when she was most vulnerable and distressed.
Melanie stared at the phone. She could call Rhys and tell him about the car, but he would dismiss it as corporate paranoia, especially while preoccupied with a hospital emergency.
She felt the insidious precision of the attack. They weren't just fighting a person; they were fighting a strategy. Every time Melanie needed support, Eliza would create an artificial crisis that only Rhys could solve, reinforcing his obligation and pushing Melanie into isolation.
The chilling reality crystallized: the cost of staying in Paris, of fighting the past, was becoming too high. She was not just losing Rhys emotionally; her life was now actively at risk. If she truly wanted to survive and secure a future, she had to break the pattern. She had to leave.