Thea's feet moved without direction, carrying her down Twenty-Third Street while her brain struggled to catch up with what had just happened, with the image of Sienna's bare shoulders and Callum's guilty face and those text messages that proved the betrayal had been choreographed weeks ago like some corporate takeover she'd been too blind to see coming.
The lunch bag was still on the sidewalk outside his building, probably being picked apart by pigeons by now, forty-three dollars of vodka pizza going to waste while tourists with their shopping bags and their matching scarves stepped around it like it was trash, which was exactly what it was, exactly what she was, disposable and easily replaced by someone younger and prettier and less ambitious.
She turned onto Seventh Avenue and kept walking, past the Christmas window displays at Macy's where families pressed their faces against glass to look at animated elves and mechanical reindeer, past the Salvation Army Santa ringing his bell for donations, past couples holding hands and laughing about things that probably weren't even funny but sounded funny when you were happy, when your boyfriend wasn't fucking your mentee in the bed where you'd slept just last weekend.
Her phone buzzed in her coat pocket but she ignored it, knew without looking that it would be Callum with his excuses or Margot wondering where she'd gone or maybe even Dorian himself confirming Monday's execution, and she couldn't deal with any of it, couldn't process the fact that in three days she'd lose her job and her apartment and probably her entire career because that's what happened when powerful men decided you were inconvenient.
The cold finally registered somewhere around Penn Station, sharp enough to cut through the numbness, and Thea realized she'd been walking for over an hour without feeling her feet, without noticing the way her breath fogged in the December air or how the sky had gone from pale gray to that deeper blue that meant evening was coming whether she was ready for it or not.
She found herself at the High Line entrance on Thirtieth Street, that elevated park she'd always meant to explore properly but never had time for because work always came first, because exceeding her targets and landing new clients and proving she belonged in rooms full of men who'd inherited their positions mattered more than walking through gardens in the middle of Manhattan.
The park was nearly empty this late on a Wednesday, just a few hardy souls braving the cold for the view, and Thea climbed the stairs with legs that felt like they belonged to someone else, someone who hadn't just discovered that the last three years of her life had been built on lies and convenience and a man who found her exhausting.
She walked until she found a bench near the Chelsea Market overlook, sat down on cold metal that bit through her coat, and stared at the city spreading out before her like a promise it had no intention of keeping, all those lit windows where other people were living their normal lives, cooking dinner and watching television and not having their worlds systematically dismantled by people they'd trusted.
The first sob caught her by surprise, tearing out of her chest like something physical, and then she couldn't stop, couldn't hold back the tears that had been building since she'd dropped that lunch bag, since she'd seen Sienna wearing her shirt, since she'd read those messages and understood that Callum and Dorian had been planning this for weeks while she'd been looking at engagement rings and imagining a future that had never existed outside her own desperate hoping.
"You okay?"
Thea looked up through blurred vision to find an older woman standing there, maybe sixty, wearing a practical wool coat and concern on her weathered face, the kind of stranger who probably shouldn't get involved but couldn't help herself anyway.
"I'm fine," Thea heard herself say, which was such an obvious lie that the woman actually smiled, sad and knowing.
"No you're not, honey," the woman said, and sat down beside her without asking permission. "But that's okay. Nobody comes to the High Line in December to cry because they're fine."
Thea almost laughed, the sound coming out wet and broken, and she wiped at her face with hands that were shaking from cold or shock or both.
"Bad breakup?" the woman asked gently.
"Bad everything," Thea said, and saying it out loud made it real in a way it hadn't been before, made her understand that this wasn't just about Callum cheating or even about losing her job, but about the fact that everything she'd built her identity around had been revealed as temporary and conditional and ultimately worthless.
The woman reached into her purse and pulled out a travel pack of tissues, handed them over like she'd been expecting this, like she carried them specifically for crying strangers on park benches.
"I caught my husband with his secretary twenty years ago," the woman said, staring out at the city lights. "Christmas party at his office. I'd gone to surprise him with his favorite cookies, and there they were in the supply closet like some bad movie."
"What did you do?" Thea asked, blowing her nose inelegantly.
"I threw the cookies at them. Snickerdoodles everywhere. Then I filed for divorce and started my own business." The woman turned to look at her. "Best thing that ever happened to me, as it turns out. Not the betrayal part, obviously. But the part where I stopped building my life around someone who didn't deserve it."
Thea's phone buzzed again, insistent, and this time she pulled it out just to make it stop, saw fifteen missed calls from Callum, three from Margot, and one new text from a number she didn't recognize.
She opened it, her heart doing something painful in her chest.
UNKNOWN: I saw you leave Sterling Property Group early. You looked upset. Are you okay?
Thea stared at the message, her exhausted brain trying to make sense of it, wondering who would have seen her leave, who would care enough to text, who even had her number that she didn't have saved.
"Bad news?" the woman asked.
"I don't know," Thea said honestly. "I don't know who this is."
She typed back with numb fingers: Who is this?
The response came immediately.
UNKNOWN: A friend, or someone who could be. Meet me at Westlight tomorrow night. Eight PM. I can help you with Dorian.
Thea's blood went cold, the numbness evaporating into something sharper and more dangerous.
How do you know about Dorian?
The three dots appeared, disappeared, appeared again, and Thea held her breath waiting for an answer that would either explain everything or make everything worse.
UNKNOWN: Because I know what he's planning for Monday. And I know you deserve better than what Callum and his uncle are going to do to you.
UNKNOWN: Come alone. Don't tell anyone. Especially not anyone at Sterling.
The woman beside her was watching now, her earlier sympathy replaced with something warier, and Thea realized she must look terrified because that's exactly what she was, terrified and confused and so tired of not understanding what was happening to her life.
"Everything okay?" the woman asked.
"I don't know," Thea said again, because that seemed to be the only honest answer she had anymore.
Her phone buzzed one more time, and she looked down at the final message that made her stomach drop straight through the bench.
UNKNOWN: Don't go home tonight. Your apartment isn't safe. They're changing the locks at midnight.
Thea stood up so fast the world tilted, her vision swimming with tears and panic and the horrible understanding that this wasn't over, that finding Callum with Sienna had only been the beginning of whatever destruction Dorian had planned, and she had nowhere to go, no one to trust, and less than six hours before she'd be locked out of the only home she had.
The woman stood too, reaching out to steady her. "What is it? What's wrong?"
But Thea was already moving, already running back toward the stairs because she needed to get to her apartment, needed to pack whatever she could carry before midnight, before Dorian took even that from her, and her phone was buzzing again but she didn't stop to look because she knew, somehow she knew, that whatever message was waiting would only confirm what she'd already started to suspect.
That Monday wasn't about firing her professionally.
It was about destroying her completely.
And whoever was texting her knew exactly how Dorian planned to do it.