Updated Oct 22, 2025 • ~12 min read
Four days of silence.
Four days of Paige checking the burner phone every hour, hating herself for it, doing it anyway.
Four days of going through motions while her mind replayed that kiss on an endless loop.
On the fifth day, she broke.
She was at work, mindlessly organizing the fiction section, when she pulled out her regular phone and opened a news app. She told herself she was just checking headlines. Staying informed.
But her fingers typed “Vincent Hartley” into the search bar.
The results were sparse—a few business articles, mentions of the Hartley family company, a photo from a charity gala three years ago. Vincent looked uncomfortable in his tuxedo, smile not reaching his eyes. Marcus stood beside him, all charm and confidence.
Brothers. So different. So the same.
Paige was about to close the app when a notification popped up.
New article: Hartley Family Patriarch Hospitalized
She clicked it, heart pounding.
Charles Hartley, 68, founder and CEO of Hartley Industries, was admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center this week following a medical emergency. Sources close to the family report his condition is serious but stable. His sons, Vincent and Marcus Hartley, have been seen at the hospital daily…
Marcus. At the hospital.
Of course he was. Playing the devoted son while his trial fell apart.
Paige’s hands shook as she set her phone down. She shouldn’t care. Marcus’s relationship with his dying father wasn’t her problem.
But the thought of him in the same building as Vincent, of them together, of Vincent having to pretend everything was fine—
Her phone buzzed. The burner.
V: Need to see you. Tonight. It’s important.
Her heart jumped into her throat.
P: What happened?
V: Not over text. Can you meet me? Same place as before. 8 PM.
The Malibu restaurant. Where everything had started to shift.
P: I’ll be there.
The rest of her shift dragged. Paige kept checking the time, anxiety building with each passing hour. Something was wrong. She could feel it.
By the time she got home to change, her nerves were frayed. She threw on jeans and a sweater, not caring how she looked. This wasn’t about looking good. This was about whatever had Vincent urgent enough to break four days of silence.
She arrived ten minutes early. Vincent was already there, looking haggard. Dark circles under his eyes, shirt wrinkled like he’d slept in it. Or hadn’t slept at all.
“What’s wrong?” Paige asked, sliding into the booth.
Vincent looked around the restaurant—mostly empty on a Tuesday night—then leaned forward. “Marcus knows.”
Paige’s blood went cold. “Knows what?”
“About us. About you and me meeting.” His voice was tight. “He’s been having you followed.”
The words didn’t make sense. “What?”
“I found out this afternoon. Marcus hired a private investigator three weeks ago. Right after you withdrew your statement.” Vincent pulled out his phone and showed her photos.
Paige stared at the screen, her stomach dropping.
Photos of her leaving her apartment. Walking to work. Getting coffee. And there—her getting into her car outside Vincent’s building. Another of them at this exact restaurant, sitting close, holding hands.
“Oh my god.”
“There’s more.” Vincent swiped. Photos of them outside the house on Mulholland Drive. Of her leaving with folders under her arm. “He knows I gave you something. He doesn’t know what yet, but he’s asking questions.”
Paige felt the walls closing in. “How did you find out?”
“Marcus is still my brother. Still stupid enough to brag when he thinks he’s got leverage.” Vincent’s jaw clenched. “He cornered me at the hospital yesterday. Showed me some of these photos. Asked what I was doing with his ‘ex.’ Asked what I’d given you that night.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That I was making sure you stayed quiet. That I was checking in, maintaining the arrangement.” Vincent met her eyes. “But he doesn’t believe me. He knows something else is happening.”
“Does he know about the money?”
“No. That was clean. Completely untraceable.” Vincent reached across the table, taking her hand. “But Paige, he’s escalating. He’s paranoid, convinced you’re going to change your mind and testify. Convinced I’m working against him.”
“Aren’t you?”
“Yes. But he can’t know that. Not yet. Not until—”
“Until your father dies.” The words felt cruel but true.
Vincent flinched but nodded. “If Marcus finds out I gave you evidence, he’ll act. Could destroy it, could come after you, could—” He stopped. “I need you to be careful. More careful than you’ve been.”
“I have been careful.”
“Have you?” His thumb rubbed circles on her palm. “Because I haven’t. I’ve been selfish, wanting to see you, needing to hear your voice. And now Marcus is watching.”
The weight of it settled over Paige like a shroud. “So what do we do?”
“We stop seeing each other. At least in person. At least for now.” Vincent’s voice was pained. “It’s too dangerous. If Marcus thinks something’s going on between us, if he gets suspicious enough—”
“He could hurt me.”
“Yes.” The word came out raw. “And I can’t let that happen. I won’t.”
Paige looked down at their joined hands. Four days ago, this had felt like a mistake they were backing away from. Now it felt like the only real thing in her life, and someone was trying to take it away.
“How long?” she asked quietly.
“Until my father passes. Then we can—” Vincent stopped. “Then everything changes anyway.”
“So we just… what? Pretend this doesn’t exist?”
“We survive. We stay smart.” He squeezed her hand. “The burner phone is safe. We can still talk. Just no more meetings. No more public places where his PI can photograph us.”
“This is insane. All of it.”
“I know.” Vincent looked miserable. “I’m sorry. For all of it. For dragging you into this, for kissing you, for making this more complicated than it already was.”
“Stop apologizing for kissing me.” The words came out sharper than intended. “That’s the one thing I don’t regret.”
Vincent’s eyes widened. “Paige—”
“I know it was a mistake. I know it can’t happen again. But don’t apologize for it. Don’t make me regret the one moment in the last month where I actually felt something besides guilt and fear.”
They stared at each other across the table, everything unsaid hanging heavy between them.
“I need to show you something else,” Vincent said finally. He pulled up another photo on his phone. “This was taken yesterday. Outside your apartment.”
Paige looked at the image and felt her blood run cold.
Marcus. Standing across the street from her building, looking up at her windows.
“He’s watching you himself now. Not just the PI.” Vincent’s voice was grim. “He’s obsessed with the idea that you’re going to change your mind. That I’m somehow influencing you.”
“He’s right. You did influence me.” Paige couldn’t look away from the photo. Marcus looked older than she remembered. Harder. “Just not the way he thinks.”
“Paige, listen to me.” Vincent put his phone away. “I need you to be vigilant. Change your routine. Don’t walk alone at night. Keep your doors locked. If you see him, if he approaches you, call the police immediately.”
“I have a restraining order.”
“Which he’s already violating by being near your apartment.” Vincent pulled out a business card—his real one this time. “This is my lawyer. David Harrison. If anything happens, if Marcus does anything, you call him. Day or night. He knows about our arrangement.”
“He knows you bribed me?”
“He knows I’m paying you to stay quiet and that Marcus is becoming unstable. He doesn’t know about the evidence.” Vincent leaned forward. “No one can know about that. Not until the right time.”
Paige pocketed the card, her hands shaking. “I’m scared.”
“I know. Me too.” Vincent looked like he wanted to reach for her again but stopped himself. “We’re going to get through this. Six months. Maybe less. My father’s doctors say—” His voice cracked. “It’s not long now.”
The words should have brought relief. Instead, Paige just felt sad. For Vincent, losing his father. For Charles Hartley, dying without knowing the truth about his youngest son. For all of them, trapped in this web of lies.
“I should go,” she said. “Before someone sees us.”
“Take the back exit. I’ll leave through the front.” Vincent stood, then hesitated. “Paige? Be safe. Please.”
“You too.”
She left through the kitchen, out into the alley behind the restaurant. The salt air hit her face as she walked to where she’d parked two blocks away—another precaution that now felt necessary.
Her car was exactly as she’d left it.
But as she drove away, she couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched.
She checked her rearview mirror obsessively the whole way home. Every car seemed suspicious. Every shadow threatening.
By the time she pulled into her parking garage, she was a mess of nerves.
Inside her apartment, Paige triple-checked the locks and closed all the curtains. Then she pulled the folders out of her closet and stared at them.
Evidence that could destroy the Hartley family. Evidence that Marcus would kill to keep hidden.
And she had it. Hidden in her closet like a bomb waiting to go off.
The burner phone rang.
“Did you make it home okay?” Vincent asked immediately.
“Yes. I’m fine.”
“Good. Listen, about what I said earlier—about not seeing each other—”
“You were right. We can’t risk it.”
“I know. But I hate it.” His voice dropped. “Four days without talking to you was hell. The idea of months—”
“We’ll still talk. On this phone. Late at night when no one’s watching.” Paige sat on her bed, phone pressed to her ear. “We’ll make it work.”
“Will we?”
“We have to. Because I can’t do this alone anymore, Vincent. I can’t carry this guilt and this fear and this… whatever this is between us… by myself.”
“You’re not alone. You’ll never be alone as long as I’m breathing.”
The words should have felt like too much. Instead, they felt like a lifeline.
“Tell me something good,” Paige said. “Something that has nothing to do with Marcus or deals or any of this.”
Vincent was quiet for a moment. Then: “When I was eight, I wanted to be an astronaut. Used to lie in the backyard and stare at the stars for hours. My father said it was impractical. That I needed to focus on the family business.”
“Did you?”
“Eventually. But I still look up sometimes. Still wonder what it would be like to be up there, far away from all of this.”
“Take me with you,” Paige whispered. “When you go.”
“Always.”
They talked until after midnight, about stars and dreams and all the lives they might have lived if things had been different. If Marcus had never hurt her. If Vincent had never made that terrible offer. If they’d met some other way, in some other life.
But they hadn’t. They’d met in the wreckage, and now they were trying to build something in the ruins.
“I need to sleep,” Vincent finally said. “Early meeting tomorrow.”
“Okay. Vincent?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you. For warning me. For caring.”
“Of course I care. Paige… I—” He stopped. “Sleep well.”
He hung up before he could finish the sentence.
But Paige heard it anyway, in the silence after.
The words he couldn’t say yet. The feelings neither of them could afford.
She fell asleep with the burner phone on her pillow and Marcus’s photo burned into her brain. Him standing outside her building, watching. Waiting.
And she dreamed of being followed through dark streets, of hands reaching for her, of Vincent’s voice calling her name but never quite reaching her.
She woke at three a.m. in a cold sweat.
The apartment was quiet. Dark. Safe.
But Paige got up anyway and checked the locks again. Then the windows. Then stood in her living room staring at the curtains, convinced she could feel eyes on her through the fabric.
She was being paranoid. Marcus wasn’t watching her right now. The PI wasn’t camped outside.
But he had been. And he would be again.
That was the new reality. Being watched. Being hunted by the man she’d once loved, the man who’d destroyed her, the man who couldn’t let her go even now.
Paige made tea she didn’t drink and sat on her couch until dawn, phone in her hand, ready to call for help if needed.
No call came.
But the waiting was its own kind of torture.
And as the sun rose over Los Angeles, painting her apartment in shades of gold and pink, Paige understood something fundamental had shifted.
This wasn’t just about surviving anymore. Wasn’t just about getting through six months until Vincent’s father died.
This was about staying alive long enough to see Marcus fall.
And that meant being smarter, more careful, more vigilant than she’d ever been.
It meant treating every shadow like a threat.
Every stranger like an enemy.
Every moment like it could be her last.
She was at war now.
She just hoped she’d survive long enough to win.
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