Chapter 3 - Knocking on Heaven's Door
The morning sun cast pale, dusty beams across Claire’s small kitchen table, where she was carefully sorting through bookstore inventory receipts.
A sharp, authoritative knock echoed from her apartment door.
Assuming it was the building superintendent about the leaky bathroom pipe, Claire wiped her hands on her jeans and walked over, unlocking the deadbolt and pulling the door open.
The words died in her throat.
Standing in the hallway was Madison. But Madison wasn't alone.
Today, Madison looked flushed, her designer travel bags resting neatly by the elevator landing. In her arms, blinking sleepily against the morning light, was Mochi.
“Claire,” Madison said, her tone brisk, carrying that familiar hint of aristocratic condescension. “Ethan and I are flying out of the country for a private business trip to Europe. I need someone to watch Mochi while we’re gone. You love the cat, right? Do it.”
Claire stared at her, dumbfounded by the sheer audacity. Madison wasn't asking; she was issuing an executive order, acting as though she was doing Claire a massive favor by letting her look at her own pet.
“Of course,” Claire whispered, her voice trembling slightly as her eyes drifted to the warm, golden fur of her beloved cat. “I’ll watch her.”
Claire instinctively reached out her hands to take Mochi.
At that exact moment, heavy, deliberate footsteps sounded from around the corner of the hallway wall. A towering silhouette stepped into view, moving with the quiet, predatory grace of a apex predator.
Ethan Blackwood.
He had been standing just out of sight near the stairwell, waiting patiently while Madison handled the errand. As he stepped into the bright fluorescent light of the hallway, his dark, piercing eyes casually scanned the area before landing directly on Claire.
Everything inside Claire froze. Her breath hitched, trapped in her lungs like jagged glass.
Ethan’s gaze swept over her appearance: the cheap, slightly crooked synthetic wig she had thrown on in a rush, her painfully thin wrists protruding from her oversized cardigan, and her frail, diminished posture that still carried the lingering ghost of aggressive chemotherapy.
For several agonizing, breathless seconds, the world stopped spinning. Neither of them moved a muscle. The hallway fell into a silence so absolute that the hum of the refrigerator inside Claire's apartment sounded like a roar.
Then, sensing a familiar presence, Mochi twisted around in Madison’s arms, let out a soft, joyful meow, and leaped out of Madison’s grip, scrambling across the floor straight toward Claire’s feet.
Claire instinctively dropped to her knees, scooping the fluffy cat into her arms, pressing her face against Mochi’s warm fur, and whispering the exact nickname she had murmured to the cat thousands of times during her endless, lonely hospital nights:
“Come here, my sweet Mochi baby. Did you miss Mommy?”
The words slipped out of her mouth before her brain could stop them—pure muscle memory, driven by years of habit.
Ethan froze mid-step.
Behind him, one of his bodyguards stiffened instantly, his hand twitching near his jacket interior where a shoulder holster rested.
Slowly, agonizingly, Ethan’s head turned. His dark eyes flicked from the calico cat cradled in Claire’s arms up to the fuzzy, short curls escaping from beneath her cheap wig, and finally down to her pale, trembling hands—hands adorned with faint scars from IV needles that no designer cream could ever fully erase.
A heavy, suffocating tension descended upon the corridor.
Ethan stared at her face, searching through the layers of time, sickness, and disguise, trying to reconcile the image burning in his memory with the broken, beautiful reality kneeling before him.
“Madison,” Ethan said quietly.
His voice didn't rise above a conversational murmur, yet it carried a razor-sharp frost that made Madison instantly stop smiling. Her radiant expression faltered.
“What is it, babe?” Madison asked, blinking nervously.
“Go wait in the car.”
Madison’s jaw dropped. Her cheeks flushed with sudden humiliation and disbelief. “What? Ethan, we’re in a rush, the pilot is waiting—”
“Now,” Ethan interrupted. His voice wasn't loud, but the absolute, chilling finality in his tone left zero room for negotiation. It was the voice of a man who commanded syndicates and decided fates with a flick of his wrist.
Madison stared at him, stunned and humiliated, before shooting a venomous glare down at Claire. With a sharp huff, she turned on her heel and walked briskly toward the elevator landing.
The elevator doors chimed, slid open, swallowed her up, and closed with a dull thud.
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The hallway fell back into a heavy, suffocating quiet.
Ethan didn't move an inch. He remained standing right outside Claire’s threshold, blocking the exit, entirely alone with a woman whose heart was hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.
