CHAPTER TWO — The Man the Rain Won't Touch (3)

"Miss Voss." Harold's voice dropped. "I want you to understand what you're asking. If I file a forgery complaint tomorrow, this becomes a criminal matter. Your father will be contacted. Your stepmother will be questioned. The press will—"

"The press will love it," Elowen said. "That's the point."

Another silence. Then, slowly, Harold Finch—who had known her since she was a child with skinned knees and a stubborn chin—said, "You've changed."

"I've had a very good teacher," Elowen said, and she wasn't sure if she meant Lila, or the man in the black car, or both.

"Then come to my office at nine. Bring identification and a clear head." A pause. "And Miss Voss? If you're going to war, I want you to understand that you will not win every battle. The family courts, the press, the optics—this will be ugly before it gets clean."

"I know."

"Good." A strange, almost satisfied sound came through the line. "Then let's make it ugly for them."

Elowen hung up and sat in the dark for a long time, the phone still in her hand.

The dress. The speech. The scholarship. And now her mother's trust.

Lila hadn't just been stealing her spotlight. She'd been stealing her future.

She was reaching for the light switch when her dead phone—the one she'd plugged in on the nightstand, the one that had been drained when Lila "borrowed" it—buzzed to life with a sound like a wasp in a jar.

Elowen picked it up.

Notifications. Dozens of them. A cascade of tags and reposts and comments rolling up her screen like a tide.

Lila had posted, eleven minutes ago, from the gala.

A photo. Lila in the silver gown, eyes red-rimmed, holding a champagne flute, captioned with four words that made Elowen's blood go very, very cold:

Still standing. Still grateful.

Below it, a thousand hearts. A thousand comments. You're so strong. She doesn't deserve you. Some people are born evil.

Elowen had been offline for exactly three hours, and in that time, Lila had already won the first round of the public war.

She sat in the dark suite, the city glittering below her like a lie that had been polished, and she did something she hadn't done in years.

She smiled.

"You want a war, Lila?" she murmured to the empty room. "No one can steal my life and get away with it."

Somewhere in the black of the city, she had a feeling the man in the Phantom already knew it.

She didn't sleep. Not really. She lay in the dark of the cream-silk suite, staring at the ceiling, replaying the night like a film she couldn't turn off—the stolen dress, the stolen speech, her father's cold face, Lila's real face, the impossible man in the black car. When the sky finally went from black to blue-gray, she gave up and got in the shower, letting the hot water drum against her shoulders until the knots in her neck loosened.

The phone rang as she was drying off.

Not the landline. Her own phone—the one that had been dead all night, the one Lila had drained. It was ringing.

The caller ID read Lila Voss.

Elowen stared at it for three rings. Four. On the fifth, she answered, and her voice came out perfectly pleasant.

"Lila. What a surprise. You're up early."

"Oh, El." Lila's voice was a masterpiece of concern—soft, breathless, pitched to break. "I was so worried about you. You left the gala so suddenly, and Dad said—" a pause, a careful swallow—"he said some things he didn't mean. You know how he gets. He's just stressed about the merger."

"The merger," Elowen repeated, toweling her hair dry with her free hand. "Right. The one you've been quietly sitting in on, in my place."

"El, I know you're upset—"

"I'm not upset." Elowen smiled into the phone. "I'm curious, actually. You've been at Voss Corp for exactly three weeks, and you've already got a seat in the merger meetings. How did you manage that?"

A beat of silence. Then, recovering, Lila laughed—a light, tinkling sound. "Dad asked me to take notes. I just happened to be there. El, please, I don't want to fight—"

"Neither do I." Elowen's voice was warm now, and it made even her own skin prickle. "Let's have lunch instead. Tomorrow. Just the two of us."

Lila's silence was longer this time. Elowen could practically hear her recalibrating, trying to find the trap.

"I—yes," Lila said finally. "Of course. Anywhere you want."

"Perfect. The Plaza. One o'clock." Elowen hung up before Lila could say another word, and stood in the middle of the suite, wrapped in a hotel towel, feeling something dangerous and wonderful settle into her bones.

She was done being the one who swallowed everything down.

There was a knock at the door.

Elowen pulled on the robe and opened it—and found, standing in the hallway, a thin young man with ink-dark eyes and the patient face of someone who had been paid not to be surprised by anything. He held a garment bag and a small black box.

"Mr. Thorne sends his regards," the young man said, and his voice was exactly as bland as his face. "The dress is for this afternoon. The box is for your breakfast."

Elowen took them, frowning. "Who are you?"

"I'm no one." The young man's mouth twitched, almost imperceptibly. "I just drive the car and carry the bags. And, occasionally, I'm paid to notice that Mr. Thorne has never once sent a stranger a dress before."

He turned and walked away before she could ask what that meant.

Elowen closed the door and unzipped the garment bag.

Inside, on a hanger of dark wood, was a dress the color of midnight and starlight—simple, devastating, the kind of dress that made everyone in a room look at you before they'd decided to. It was not her mother's dress. It was better.

The black box held a phone. A new one, still in its packaging, with a single note on top.

In case anyone tries to kill your battery again. — K.T.

Elowen stood in the middle of the cream-silk suite, holding the dress in one hand and the phone in the other, and for the first time in three years, she felt like she had an ally.

She didn't know what he wanted. She didn't know who he was. But she knew, with a certainty that settled in her chest like a stone in a still pond, that she was no longer alone in this fight.

The war for her life had begun.

And she was done playing defense.