Chapter 8 - The Long Walk Down
The silence that followed was heavier than any argument we could have had.
Sienna didn't scream. She didn't throw anything. She simply folded inward, curling her arms around her knees as she sat on the edge of the massive hotel bed, looking small, broken, and utterly deserted. The emerald dress pooled around her feet like spilled poison.
“You’re a cold man, Reid,” she whispered into the empty space between us, her voice hollow and devoid of fight. “You planned every single step of this, didn't you? You let me walk right into it.”
“I gave you enough rope, Sienna,” I said, turning away from her toward the door. “You were the one who decided to tie the knot.”
I didn't look back as I walked across the plush carpet. I pushed open the heavy suite door and stepped out into the quiet, dimly lit hallway of the eighth floor.
The air out here was cool, smelling faintly of lemon polish and fresh linen. Downstairs, through the reinforced concrete and structural steel of the hotel, I could still hear the faint, dull thrum of the ballroom orchestra playing a Strauss waltz for people who had no idea their world had just shifted on its axis.
I took the service stairs again—not because I was hiding, but because the steady, rhythmic impact of my shoes against the concrete felt grounding. Every step down was a shedding of dead weight. Seven years of quiet condescension, late-night lies, and polite, calculated disrespect evaporated with every floor I descended.
When I reached the ground level, I pushed through the heavy fire exit and stepped out into the cool night air of downtown Pittsburgh.
The city was breathtaking at midnight. The yellow span of the Roberto Clemente Bridge arched gracefully over the dark, gleaming waters of the Allegheny River, and the skyscrapers of the Golden Triangle reached up into a clear, starless autumn sky. It was my city. It had always been my city, long before Sienna ever stepped foot in a corner office or learned how to look down at me from an executive suite.
My phone vibrated in my pocket.
I pulled it out. It wasn't an encrypted corporate alert this time, and it wasn't a lawyer’s summons. It was a simple text from Julian Vance, head of hotel security:
May you like
*All evidence secure, Mr. Abbott. The suite is clear. Have a good evening.*
I slid the phone back into my pocket, adjusted the collar of my charcoal coat, and began the long, easy walk across the cobblestone street toward my car.
