MIA
Mia's hands gripped the steering wheel so hard her knuckles turned white.
Run, Mia. Run.
The text message glowed in her mind even though her phone sat dark in the passenger seat. Unknown number. Three words. No explanation.
She should turn around. Go back to her apartment. Lock the door. Call the police.
Instead, she pressed harder on the gas pedal.
The Crane estate sat thirty minutes outside the city, hidden behind iron gates and old trees. She'd driven this route twice a month for five years. Charity galas. Holiday dinners. Photo opportunities. Each visit carefully scheduled, carefully timed, carefully fake.
Never at midnight.
Never because her stepsister was dead and her husband's assistant said there was something she "needed to know."
Her phone rang. She nearly swerved off the road.
Jade's name flashed on the screen.
Mia hit answer. "Not now—"
"Are you okay?" Jade's voice came out fast and worried. "I saw the news about Cora. Mia, they're saying the Ghost killed her. The actual Ghost. And the police are asking about you because of what happened at the office and—"
"I know."
"Where are you? I'm coming over."
"I'm not home."
Silence. Then: "Please tell me you're not doing something stupid."
Mia's laugh came out bitter. "Define stupid."
"Going anywhere near your fake husband's creepy mansion in the middle of the night after your stepsister got murdered by the city's most dangerous crime lord."
The iron gates appeared ahead. Mia slowed down.
"I'll call you back," she said.
"Mia—"
She hung up.
The gates swung open before she could press the intercom button. Like someone had been watching. Waiting for her.
The driveway curved through darkness. No lights in the windows. No cars parked outside. The Crane estate looked empty, but Mia knew better. Security cameras everywhere. Guards she never saw. Damien Shaw moving through shadows like he owned them.
And Elias. Always Elias. Sitting in his wheelchair in that study with his medication and his monitors and his slow, careful death that had been taking five years and still hadn't finished.
She parked and sat in the car for a long moment.
Gold-digger. Fraud. Whore.
Cora's words echoed in her head. Would keep echoing probably forever now. Because dead people's voices don't fade. They just get louder.
The strangest part? Mia felt nothing.
She'd spent the last six hours waiting for sadness to hit. For guilt. For grief. Something. But there was just... emptiness. Like someone had scooped out her insides and left nothing behind.
Cora had hated her. Mia had known that. Accepted it. Survived it.
And now Cora was gone and Mia felt—
Nothing.
What kind of person feels nothing when their sister dies?
Stepsister, she corrected herself automatically. Even in her own head, the distinction mattered.
The front door opened. Damien stood in the doorway, perfectly dressed even at midnight. He never looked rumpled. Never looked tired. Just watching. Always watching.
"Mrs. Crane." He stepped aside to let her in. "Mr. Crane is resting. He asked me to make you comfortable while you wait."
"Wait for what?"
Damien's expression didn't change. "He'll explain."
The entrance hall felt colder than usual. Darker. Mia followed Damien into the sitting room where she'd sat dozens of times before, smiling for photographers, pretending this was home.
"Can I get you anything?" Damien asked.
"Answers."
His mouth almost smiled. Almost. "Mr. Crane will provide those. In the meantime—" He gestured to the television. "The police are holding a press conference. I thought you might want to see it."
He turned on the TV and left before Mia could respond.
The screen showed a police station conference room packed with reporters. Detective Morrison stood at a podium, looking tired. The same detective who'd called her three hours ago.
"Thank you all for coming." His voice crackled through the speakers. "At 6:47 this morning, the body of Cora Harlow was discovered in her apartment. We are treating this as a homicide investigation."
Cameras flashed. Reporters shouted questions.
Mia sat down slowly. Her coat was still on. She felt cold.
"We believe this incident is connected to a series of unsolved murders attributed to an individual known as the Ghost." Morrison paused. "This organized crime figure has operated in our city for over a decade. No arrests have been made. Until now, we've had no leads."
"Detective!" A reporter called out. "Do you have a suspect?"
Morrison's jaw tightened. "We're interviewing several persons of interest."
The camera zoomed in on his face. Behind him, other detectives stood in a line. Official. Professional. Waiting.
And behind them, barely visible in the background—
A silhouette.
Mia leaned forward.
The figure stood apart from the officers. Taller than the rest. Completely still. Wearing a dark suit that blended into the shadows, but she could see his outline. The way he held his shoulders. The particular angle of his head.
The exact way someone stands when they know the room already belongs to them.
Her breath stopped.
"Can you confirm if the Ghost has struck before?" another reporter asked.
Morrison nodded. "Seven confirmed kills over twelve years. All connected to organized crime. All executed with—"
Mia wasn't listening anymore.
The figure in the background shifted slightly. Turned his head. Not enough to see his face. Just enough to show his profile. The line of his jaw. The way he held himself.
That stillness.
She knew that stillness.
She'd watched it for five years. At charity galas where he sat in his wheelchair, hands folded, face blank. At business dinners where he barely spoke. At their wedding where he'd looked at her exactly once and then looked away.
Elias never fidgeted. Never moved unless he had to. Never wasted motion.
Because sick people conserve energy.
Dying people move slowly.
Except the man in that press conference wasn't moving slowly. He was standing like someone who could move very, very fast if he wanted to. Like someone who was choosing to be still.
Like a predator waiting.
"No," Mia whispered.
The camera panned back to Morrison. The silhouette disappeared from frame.
Mia's phone slipped from her lap. It hit the hardwood floor with a crack that echoed through the empty room.
Her mind raced.
The wheelchair. The medication. The private nurses. Five years of careful deterioration. Five years of a man slowly dying.
Except he wasn't in the wheelchair anymore, was he?
He was at a police station. Standing. At a press conference about the Ghost. About Cora's murder.
Mia's hands started shaking again.
There's something you need to know about your husband, Damien had said. Something that can't wait until morning.
Footsteps sounded in the hallway.
Not the sound of wheels on marble.
Footsteps.
Slow. Deliberate. Getting closer.
Mia stood up fast. Her legs felt weak. The television kept playing but she couldn't hear it anymore over the sound of her heartbeat.
The footsteps stopped right outside the sitting room door.
The door handle turned.
Mia couldn't breathe. Couldn't move. Couldn't do anything except stare as the door swung open inch by inch.
A man stepped into the doorway.
Tall. Dark suit. No wheelchair. No blanket. No IV drip. No medication. No weakness.
Just Elias Crane, standing perfectly straight, looking at her with eyes that were completely, impossibly awake.
He wasn't dying.
He'd never been dying.
And he was looking at her the way a hunter looks at something he's been tracking for a very, very long time.
"Hello, Mia," he said quietly.
His voice sounded different without the medication slur. Sharper. Colder. Real.
"You watched the press conference." Not a question. A statement.
Mia's mouth opened. No sound came out.
Elias stepped into the room. One step. Two steps. Moving like someone who'd never needed a wheelchair in his life. Like someone who'd been pretending for five straight years and had just decided to stop.
"Did you recognize me?" he asked.
Her voice came out as a whisper. "The silhouette."
Something flickered in his eyes. Not surprise. Something else. Something that looked almost like relief.
"Yes," he said simply. "That was me."
The room tilted. Mia grabbed the back of the chair to keep from falling.
"The police station," she managed. "You were at the police station. At the press conference about—"
She couldn't finish.
Elias finished for her. His voice never changed. Never wavered.
"About the Ghost." He paused. Let the words sink in. "About me."
The world stopped spinning.
Started spinning the other way.
Mia stared at the man she'd married five years ago. The man she'd visited twice a month. The man she'd smiled beside at charity events while he sat silent in his wheelchair. The man everyone thought was dying.
The man who was the Ghost.
"No," she whispered.
"Yes."
"You—" Her voice broke. "Cora—"
"Cora crossed a line." Elias's expression didn't change. "I crossed it back."
Mia's legs gave out. She collapsed into the chair behind her.
Her dying husband wasn't dying.
Her contract marriage wasn't what she thought.
And the Ghost—the faceless killer who'd been terrorizing the city for twelve years—
Was standing three feet away from her, wearing her husband's face.