The rain had stopped sometime before dawn. Tisha woke to a gray light that wasn't quite morning, the kind that made the hotel room look worse than it had in the dark—the water stain on the ceiling, the crack running through the bathroom tile, the thin blanket bunched at her feet. She lay still for a moment, listening. Somewhere far off, a siren started up, thin and insistent, and she counted her breaths until it faded.

Her phone sat on the nightstand where she'd left it, face-up. Three messages from Dana, unread. Nothing else. She reached for it anyway, thumb hovering over the screen, over Pete's name in her contacts, the one she'd dialed twice from his mansion and hung up on both times. No missed calls. No messages. The house was empty, and he didn't know it yet.

She sat up too fast. The queasiness hit her like a wave, and she pressed a hand to her stomach, breathing through it the way she'd learned in the mansion, the way she still blamed on nerves. The room tilted, steadied. She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and stood.

The mirror above the dresser was cracked in one corner, a spiderweb of glass that split her reflection down the middle. She looked at herself—her hair tangled, her eyes hollow, the faint bruise on her wrist where she'd struggled against the gardener's gate latch the night before. She touched it with her other hand. It didn't hurt. That was somehow worse.

She dressed in the same clothes she'd worn out of the mansion—jeans, a plain white shirt, a jacket she'd bought at a gas station on the way. They smelled faintly of rain and cheap soap. She pulled her hair back into a knot at the nape of her neck and didn't look at the mirror again.

The duffel bag was already packed. She'd done it last night, in the dark, stuffing her few things inside—the extra shirt, the toothbrush, the phone charger. She'd left nothing behind in the mansion that she wanted. Nothing except her own reflection, and she didn't want that either.

She picked up the bag. The zipper caught on a loose thread near the handle, and she worked it free with her thumbnail, patient, deliberate, the way she'd once worked through the knots in her hair before a show. The bag was light. It held almost nothing of her life. She couldn't decide if that was a relief or a tragedy.

The phone buzzed. She flinched, nearly dropped it, and looked down at the screen. A news alert, not a call. She read the headline without meaning to: *Raid on suspected mob compound in Queens.* The words blurred, then sharpened. She scrolled past it before she could read more, her thumb moving on its own, and the screen went dark.

She stood in the middle of the room with the phone in her hand and the weight of what she'd done pressing down on her chest. Eleven photos. One video. A man named Miguel chained to a chair, begging for help she hadn't given him. She'd sent it all to Dana, a journalist she'd never met, who had reached out after her wedding to ask questions about Pete Bianchi. She'd deleted her own confirmation message. As if that could make it less real.

She practiced her story out loud, her voice thin and strange in the empty room. "I'm visiting family. I'm going home for a funeral." She shook her head. That was wrong. A funeral would make her look nervous, make her cry. "I'm going home. My mother is sick." Her mother. Rosa Reyes, in a small house in Quezon City, who didn't know her daughter had become the kept woman of a mafia boss, who didn't know the danger she was in. Tisha's stomach turned again, and she pressed her hand against it, hard.

"I'm just going home," she said, quieter. "I'm a model. I had a job in the city. It ended. I'm going home." That was true enough. The job had ended. Everything had ended.

She didn't know if she could say it to a ticket agent without her voice cracking. She didn't know if she could say it at all.

The window faced the street. Through the rain-streaked glass, she could see a taxi idling at the curb below, exhaust curling into the damp air, its yellow roof light a small, steady glow. She watched it for a long moment. The driver was reading something on his phone, oblivious. She thought about the airport, about the crowds, about the security lines where she'd have to show her ID, her real name, her real face. She thought about Pete's men finding her mother before she could warn her.

The siren started up again, closer this time. She counted her breaths. One. Two. Three. The sound faded into the gray morning, and she let out the air she'd been holding.

She checked her phone one last time. No messages from Pete. No messages from anyone except Dana, three of them, unread, sitting in her notifications like a stone she'd already thrown. She didn't open them. She knew what they said. The meeting was set for nine. She wasn't going to make it. She was going to the airport instead.

The queasiness rose again, stronger this time, and she sat down on the edge of the bed, her head between her knees, waiting for it to pass. It didn't pass. It settled into her stomach like something alive, something that had taken root in her and refused to let go. She thought about the mornings in Pete's mansion, the smell of bacon and coffee making her turn away from the kitchen, the way she'd blamed it on nerves and fear and the shame of wanting him. She thought about the way her body had changed, the way her breasts had grown tender, the way she'd been tired by noon, the way she'd been late—

She stopped thinking. She wasn't ready. Not here, not now, not with the evidence in her phone and the taxi idling at the curb and the siren fading into the distance. She stood up, and the room steadied around her.

She checked the room one last time—the nightstand, the dresser, the bathroom counter. Nothing left. No toothbrush, no charger, no half-eaten pretzel. The bed was a mess of tangled sheets, and she smoothed them down with one hand before she could stop herself, the way she'd smoothed the sheets in Pete's mansion, the way she'd learned to leave a room clean because he'd taught her that everything had a place. She pulled her hand back like she'd been burned.

The taxi was still at the curb. The driver had put down his phone and was looking up at the building now, patient, waiting. She didn't know if he was waiting for her. She didn't care. She needed to move, to get out of this room before the walls closed in, before she sat down on the bed again and stayed there until Pete's men found her.

She picked up the duffel bag. The zipper caught again, the same loose thread, and this time she didn't work it free. She just held the bag tighter and walked to the door.

Her hand was on the knob when she heard it—another siren, closer than the last one, a wail that rose and fell and rose again, like something hunting. She stood very still, her fingers wrapped around the cold metal, and listened. It passed. It faded. The city swallowed it the way it swallowed everything—the rain, the sirens, the screams in the basement of a mansion in Queens.

She thought about Miguel. She thought about the way he'd looked at her, the hope in his eyes when she'd come down those stairs, the way that hope had died when she'd whispered that she couldn't help him. She thought about the photographs in her phone, the strangers bound and beaten, the metal table with its rust-colored stains. She thought about Dana, waiting at a diner on 12th and Carmine, waiting for evidence that would never come because Tisha was running instead of fighting.

She didn't know if she was a coward or a survivor. She didn't know if there was a difference.

The phone buzzed again. She looked down. Another news alert, the same headline, *Raid on suspected mob compound in Queens,* and this time she read the first line before she could stop herself: *Police executed a warrant on the Queens estate of alleged organized crime figure Pietro Bianchi early this morning, sources say—*

Her breath caught. She scrolled down, her thumb moving before her mind could catch up, and the words blurred and sharpened and blurred again. *—no arrests have been made at this time. The property was found empty. An investigation is ongoing.*

Empty. The mansion was empty. He was gone.

She didn't know if that was relief or terror. She didn't know if he'd fled, if he'd been tipped off, if he was already hunting for her. She didn't know if the police had found the basement, if they'd found Miguel, if they'd found the photographs and the table and the blood. She didn't know anything except that she was standing in a cheap hotel room near the airport with a duffel bag in her hand and a phone full of evidence and a body that was betraying her in ways she couldn't name.

The queasiness rose again, and this time she didn't fight it. She let it wash over her, let it bend her forward until her forehead touched the cool wood of the door, and she breathed through it until it passed.

When she straightened, her eyes were wet. She wiped them with the back of her hand and didn't think about why.

The taxi was still there. The driver had started the engine, and the exhaust was curling into the gray air, and the yellow glow of the roof light was like a small, steady sun in the rain-washed morning. She watched it for a long moment, and then she turned the knob and pulled the door open.

The hallway was empty. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead, and the carpet was worn thin in the middle, and somewhere down the hall a door closed with a soft, final click. She stepped out of the room and closed the door behind her.

The lock clicked into place. She stood in the hallway with the duffel bag in her hand and the phone in her pocket, and she didn't look back at the door. She didn't look back at the room, at the cracked mirror, at the rain-streaked window, at the bed she'd barely slept in. She looked down the hallway toward the stairs, toward the lobby, toward the taxi idling at the curb and the airport beyond it and the plane that would take her home.

Home. She didn't know what that meant anymore. She didn't know if Quezon City was home, or if the mansion had been home, or if home was a place she'd never find again. She only knew she had to move, had to keep moving, had to put one foot in front of the other until she was on that plane and the city was behind her.

The siren started up again, distant now, a thin wail that rose and fell and faded into the gray morning. She counted her breaths. One. Two. Three. And then she walked.