The tracking app had been active for three days.
Three long days of knowing that every step she took, every person she spoke to, every single minute she spent away from her desk was logged, monitored, recorded. Three days of feeling like a prisoner in her own life—always looking over her shoulder, second-guessing even the most innocent interactions.
Three days of watching Lucien Drake shift from the demanding but predictable boss she had learned to manage—into something else entirely. Something darker. Possessive. Paranoid. Suffocating.
Yesterday, he'd grilled her about a conversation with the mailroom clerk. This morning, he'd wanted to know why she'd taken an extra five minutes in the bathroom. An hour ago, he'd appeared at her desk to question a phone call from her mother's hospital—a routine check-in that he had twisted into proof of some imagined conspiracy.
It was insane. All of it.
And Ava had reached the end of her rope.
She sat at her desk, staring at the resignation letter. She'd typed it three times. Printed it three times. Revised until the words were sharp, neat, and unassailable. Short. Professional. To the point. No accusations. No explanations. Nothing he could twist and use against her later. Just a simple statement: she was done. Effective immediately.
Her belongings were already packed into a cardboard box she'd swiped from the supply closet—a few photos, her favorite pen, the tiny succulent her mother had given her. Everything else belonged to Drake Enterprises. Which meant, in the end, everything else belonged to Lucien.
Including her.
But not anymore.
She'd spent the past three nights wide awake in the bed he'd chosen, in the apartment he'd paid for, wearing the nightgown he had picked. Thinking about what it meant to be owned. Thinking about the surveillance photos littering the archive room floor. Thinking about the tracking app. Thinking about the casual way he had threatened her mother's care to ensure obedience.
And thinking about Paris. The way he'd held her there. The way he'd whispered her name like prayer. The way he'd dismissed her the next morning as if she were a deal closed, a transaction concluded.
She couldn't live this way. Couldn't breathe this way. Couldn't keep existing in a world where her every action was scrutinized, where her worth was measured only by her usefulness as his possession.
The money didn't matter anymore. Not the bills. Not the debt. Not the medical costs that had driven her into his web in the first place. None of it mattered as much as clawing back the simplest thing—her humanity.
She would figure it out. Three jobs if she had to. Selling everything she owned if that's what it took. She would learn how to navigate the system without him, without his money, without his control. It would be hard—harder than anything she had ever done. But it would be hers.
Choice. That was worth more than all his luxury.
Ava picked up the resignation letter. Her hands were steady. The calm surprised her. For the first time in months, she was about to act for herself. A decision that belonged to her alone.
It was terrifying. It was liberating. It was necessary.
She rose from her chair. Colleagues glanced at her curiously. The box was light enough to carry in one hand. The letter crisp in the other. Everything else—clothes, cards, laptop—stayed behind.
She was walking away with what she had arrived with: nothing but dignity, and the determination to reclaim her life.
The walk to Lucien's office felt endless, each step echoing with finality. A line was being crossed. A bridge burned. Her heart pounded with adrenaline—and something that tasted like freedom.
She knocked once. Hard.
"Come in."
His voice sounded different. Strained. Almost tired. But she was too focused to linger on it. She opened the door.
Lucien sat behind his desk, phone at his ear. His posture was wrong. Not his usual rigid perfection. Shoulders sagged. Head heavy.
"Just find a match," he was saying, desperation sharp in his tone. "I don't care what it costs. Money is no object."
Ava froze.
"Patient is Patricia Lane," he continued, and her world lurched. "Fifty-eight. Acute myeloid leukemia. Responding to treatment, but without a bone marrow transplant within six months, survival is unlikely."
Her mother.
Her mother.
"I've authorized expanded testing. Check every registry. Contact international facilities. This woman needs a donor, and I need it found."
Ava stood in the doorway. The letter shook in her hand. Her mother was dying. Her mother needed a transplant. She hadn't known.
But Lucien had. He'd known. And he was moving mountains to save her.
"Yes, I understand the odds," he said, raking a hand through his perfect hair, leaving it disheveled. "I know finding a match can take years. But I also know without one, she dies. So improve the odds. Find a way."
He hung up. Finally noticed her. His eyes went straight to the box in her arms. The letter clutched in her hand.
For a moment, silence.
"Going somewhere?" His voice was quiet.
"You knew." Her own voice was barely audible. "You knew my mother was dying. And you didn't tell me."
Something flickered in his face—guilt, maybe. Or just exhaustion. "The doctors wanted to finish tests before telling family. They thought it would be easier with a full plan."
"That wasn't their choice to make." Her anger broke through the shock. "She's my mother. I had a right to know."
"You had a right to hope," he corrected softly. "Hope you wouldn't have had if you knew she was dying."
The way he said it—dying—buckled her knees. Her hand went numb. The letter slipped to the floor.
"How long?" she whispered.
"Without a transplant? Six months. Maybe eight." His tone was clinical, but his eyes—his eyes held something that looked like compassion. "With one, her chances are excellent."
"And you're trying to find a donor."
"I'm trying to save her life." His answer was simple. "It's what I've been trying to do since you first walked into my office."
The words struck her like a blow. All this time, she'd believed it was about power. Control. Possession. But if her mother was dying… if she had been dying all along…
"Why didn't you tell me?" The question came out raw.
"Because you would have done this." He gestured to the box, the letter. "You'd have panicked. Made decisions that risked her life."
"I would have spent more time with her," Ava shot back. "I would have told her every day that I loved her. I would have—"
"You would have quit. Refused my help. Tried to shoulder it alone." His interruption was sharp. "She would have died in a state facility while you broke yourself working three jobs for treatments that don't exist."
The honesty cut like glass. And the worst part—she knew he wasn't wrong. She would have done exactly that.
"You should have given me the choice," she said, voice thin.
"Choice is a luxury desperate people can't afford." His reply was quiet. "I gave you what you needed. Not what you wanted."
She stared at him. Trying to reconcile the man who had installed spyware on her phone with the man who was begging registries around the world to save her mother. The man who had suffocated her every move—with the one who looked, in this moment, like he had aged years.
"Is that what this was?" she asked. "The job, the surveillance, the control? To keep me close while you tried to save her?"
"Partly." His candor was unsettling.
"And the other part?"
He held her gaze. The silence stretched. When he finally spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper.
"The other part is that I saw you fighting for her. And I knew I would do anything to help you win. Even if it meant becoming the villain in your story."
The words hung heavy between them.
Because if he meant them—if every twisted, controlling move had been tangled up in his attempt to save her mother—what did that make him? Hero? Villain? Both?
And what did it make her—for wanting to run from the one person who might be able to keep her mother alive?