The front door clicked shut.
Silence.
Elara stood in the center of the living room. The only light came from the streetlamp outside, slicing through the blinds.
The pot still sat on the cold stove. Coq au vin. It looked like a lump of mud now.
The candles had burned down to stubs, wax pooling on the cheap tablecloth.
Her hands were steady.
Too steady.
She walked to the sofa. She sat. The cushion sighed under her weight.
She picked up her phone. The plastic case was warm from her grip.
She opened Instagram.
It was there, at the top of her feed. Diego's profile picture. Camila Ventura's tag.
The photo.
Her balcony. Her plant in the corner, the one she'd nursed from a clipping.
When ambition meets its perfect match. #NoLookingBack
She scrolled down.
The comments were a live feed.
Damn, Monty! Leveled UP!
Knew he was too fine for that plain Jane situation.
This is what ambition looks like, people. She's a VENTURA.
RIP to the nice girl. She never stood a chance.
The way he's looking at her… he never looked at his ex like that.
Plain Jane.
Nice girl.
His ex.
Her thumb kept moving. Down, down, down.
A video. Someone had filmed it. A shaky, dark clip.
Her building's entrance. Diego and Camila spilling out, laughing, tangled together.
Camila pulling him in for another kiss against the brick wall.
The caption: Saw this CEO's daughter and her new boytoy leaving some mid-tier building. The glow up is REAL.
Her breath hitched. Just once.
Then it evened out. In. Hold. Out. Hold.
A pattern.
In. Hold. Out. Hold.
The trembling in her left hand stopped.
She opened her settings.
Delete account.
The app asked if she was sure.
She tapped yes.
Facebook. Delete account.
Twitter. Delete account.
The "Lara Montes" Pinterest boards. Delete.
The Spotify playlist "Study Beats". Delete.
It took three minutes and forty-seven seconds.
The digital ghost of the girl who lived here vanished.
She pulled a different phone from the side pocket of her duffel bag. It was sleek, black, matte. No logos.
The screen lit up with a single, blinking dot.
She pressed her thumb to the sensor. It unlocked silently.
One contact list. Five numbers.
She hit the first one.
It rang once.
"Talk." Her brother Nate's voice.
"I need to disappear," she said. Her voice was flat. Calm. "Tonight."
A clatter of keys. "Location?"
"No. Don't come get me."
"Elara."
"Just erase the trails. Everything from the last three years. The bank accounts, the leases, the digital dust. Make it a ghost story."
Nate was silent for two seconds. "The primary shells are already rotated. The academic records are sealed behind a new firewall. It was a contingency."
He paused. "The wolves are already sniffing?"
She looked at the dark window. "One wolf. He just brought a bigger, meaner one home."
"Understood." More typing. "The usual place?"
"The usual place."
"You'll have a shadow. Don't shake it."
"I know."
"Lara?" His voice softened, just a fraction.
"Don't," she said. "Just do the thing."
She ended the call.
She stood up. The apartment seemed smaller now. A diorama.
She walked to the closet and pulled out an old, worn hiking backpack from the very back. It smelled of dust and nylon.
She emptied the duffel bag into it.
Then she added three more items.
One: The laptop. It was thinner than a magazine. Quantum-encrypted.
Two: A passport. Brazilian. The name read Larissa Costa Santos.
Three: The pearl earrings. She took off the simple studs and put these in. They were heavier. Cold.
That was it. Everything else was set dressing.
She did a final sweep.
The IKEA sofa.
The second-hand bookshelf.
The faux-wood laminate floor.
It was all so… carefully constructed.
Every piece chosen to sell the lie.
She shouldered the backpack. The weight was familiar.
She didn't look back.
She walked out, locking the door behind her for the last time.
She left the key on the floor mat.
The hallway was empty. The fluorescent light buzzed.
She pressed the elevator button.
The secret phone vibrated in her palm.
A single text. From Mãe.
She opened it.
"The nest is always warm, my panther."
"But if you need to hunt alone, we know how to watch from a distance."
Elara stared at the words.
A warmth spread through her chest, sharp and painful.
She stepped into the elevator.
As the doors closed, her mother's final message burned in her hand.
The elevator began its descent.
From the shadowed stairwell door, twenty feet away, a man in a dark hoodie lowered his phone.
The screen showed a grainy, real-time feed of the empty corridor.
He put the phone to his ear.
"The package is mobile," he said, his voice low. "Heading down. Alone."
He listened.
"Understood. We'll keep the perimeter. The brother's drones are already in the air. No one gets close."
He melted back into the stairwell, silent as a breath.
The elevator hit the ground floor with a soft ding.
The doors opened to the empty lobby.
Elara walked out, her head down, the pearl in her earlobe catching the dim light for a single, fleeting second.