IF YOU THROW ME OUT, I'LL COME BACK IN.
When Hugo got back to the car, he didn't look like the same man.
His arrogance was still intact.
But an unexpected exhaustion lingered in his eyes.
His shoulders were slightly slumped and tense.
I waited for his words with my heart clenched.
He had asked me to stay in the car while he handled it.
That Sue was blaming me for attacking her made no sense.
He admitted it, bewildered.
And in his eyes flashed disbelief toward the woman he was planning to marry.
I kept rubbing my hands together.
Inside the car, in the hospital parking lot.
While he went upstairs to argue with the doctors and the agents who had asked us to come in that same morning.
Why would Sue blame me?
Jealousy?
The duplicate ring?
Delirium?
The worst part wasn't that.
It was that uneasy feeling twisting inside me.
The sensation that something was terribly wrong, and the harder I tried to see it, the darker it became.
Like knowing the answer was behind an impenetrable wall of thick fog.
And when Hugo got into the car and loosened his tie, letting out a small but undeniable sigh, it put me on alert.
He looked at me before saying anything.
My eyes fixed on the ring on my finger.
It was there again.
And I didn't know if it was mine or hers.
His voice finally broke the silence.
A silence that space could no longer hold.
"I told the police it was impossible for you to have done it," he said, in a voice that wasn't quite his. "That we were together. For now you have an alibi, Isabella." A pause. "But they're gathering evidence. There was no one else at the crime scene, nor any proof of it."
I bit my lower lip and thought about the person who left that note.
I opened my mouth but only took a breath I then let out.
If I told him before figuring out what was happening, I would lose the little advantage I thought I had.
"Good," I murmured then. "Thank you for doing that. Now take me back to your house."
He didn't start the engine. He turned his body more toward me.
"It would be better if you went to yours. I have to go to the Company. And this…" An almost imperceptible gesture of confusion tightened his lips. "…is starting to get out of control."
"Hugo," I glared at him. "I'm not leaving, and if you throw me out, you know I'll come back in without getting tired." I clenched my fists. "You need me. I'm going to get to the bottom of this. Do you hear me?"
I tried to touch him but he straightened up.
Staring straight ahead.
Gripping the steering wheel so hard it almost protested.
I looked at his profile.
He was still rigid.
But no longer because of me.
I thought he would explode, but…
"Then do it, Isabella. I know you can."
I smiled. Barely.
Not from joy, but from certainty.
He had told me the night he caught me in his office: "Don't even think about it."
And I was going to show him I wouldn't need to beg.
Nor sneak naked into his bed.
I would make him eat out of my hand.
Because there was nothing else I wanted more.
The hum of the engine quieted the storm in my head.
We didn't say a word as the car swallowed miles through the foggy, crowded city streets.
I closed my eyes and started humming.
To detach myself from the noise outside.
From the movement.
The only place that made me function now was his mansion.
As if it fed me.
That place and I had something.
Indefinable. Unnameable.
But real.
AM I GOING CRAZY?
When I entered Hugo's office, I knew something had changed.
Not in the way it looked.
But in the silence that greeted me.
A silence on the verge of overflowing.
He had gone to work.
As if nothing had happened.
I swore the missing pieces were right there.
I had power over many things, but others kept slipping away from me.
And there were questions with no answers.
All of them vital.
1. Why did Hugo know me and know what I was doing?
2. Why did he let me in and let me stay?
3. Who wanted to destroy him?
4. Did he know?
One thing was clear: Yes, he knew.
Much more than he let on.
He wasn't that powerful for nothing.
But his reasons were hidden from me.
I didn't want to see that maybe I was one of those pieces, useless on a board that was bigger than me.
One that, even if it wasn't missing, was far from fitting.
Or making any move.
And that conclusion led me to the question whose answer mattered most to my ego:
5. Why wasn't he using my body too?
I licked my lips, which tasted like rust.
I went for the whisky.
Even though it was early, my body asked for it.
Or my head. It didn't matter.
I sat down with a full glass in front of the computer.
I used my secret Company code.
The one that let me access classified files.
It was limited, but I knew how to corrupt it.
And stretch it.
Whatever was behind it, I was going to find out.
I don't know how long I was there.
Only that I collapsed in front of a secret folder full of compromising images.
There were names and faces I had seen at the Company.
I didn't collapse because of that.
My eyes simply stopped seeing.
And the whisky did its job.
A voice pulled me out of the darkness.
"If it gets there we'll have to kill her," it sentenced, then asked, "You know that, right?"
A heavy breath was the answer.
It was the same voice as before.
It always was.
A door slammed.
The rustle of papers.
And I opened my eyes.
I sat up in the chair.
I couldn't feel my body.
I looked around and I was alone.
Shit.
Was I really going crazy?
The monitor blinked in front of me.
With that bluish, dull tone.
I tried to stand up.
My stiff limbs ached.
The sudden whistle of a draft entering the room startled me.
The curtains crackled.
And right at that moment I saw it.
First, a business card with golden edges at the foot of the sofa.
And then… another note.
On the edge of the desk.
Exposed, held down by a paperweight.
The pen it was written with still lay beside it, uncapped.
"You have seventy-two hours before the police take action. They don't know yet, but I do."
I had to hold myself up.
The handwriting was exquisite.
More personal and urgent than the previous one.
That supposed a crack.
Not in me.
In the sender.
Whoever it was.
I took it and slipped it into my bra.
Then I turned and picked up the business card from the floor.
When I saw the name on it…
Everything went black again.