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I couldn't do this.

I unclipped my seat belt and reached for the car handle. "I'm sorry, Mark. I need to go back. I'll talk to you tomorrow about the campaign."

I pulled on the handle.

Nothing happened.

I turned back to Mark. "Unlock the door."

He just stared at me.

"Unlock the door, Mark." Panic made my voice higher than normal.

He swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing, a vein pulsing at his temple. "I can't do that, Sabrina."

I blinked, disbelief warring with growing terror. "Why not?"

"My instructions were to get you here by 8 p.m.," was his only response, devoid of the charm he'd been wielding like a weapon since we'd met.

"Your instructions? What the fuck is going on, Mark?"

"Look, Sabrina, you're sweet and everything, but you don't have the connections she does." He shrugged, as though we were discussing a business deal over coffee rather than what felt increasingly like a kidnapping.

“Filomena Diamanti. It was her, wasn’t it? In my office today, that wasn’t a coincidence.”

He shrugged again, a smirk playing at the corners of his mouth. "Guilty. Did you like the bit where we pretended to hate one another? That was my idea."

He looked genuinely pleased with himself, as if he were waiting for me to compliment his acting.

I thought about every conversation we’d had. Every laugh. Every seemingly genuine moment of connection over cameras and composition and the lonely reality of creative work. All of it—choreographed. Filomena pulling his strings while I stood there like an idiot, grateful for his friendship.

"You fucking snake." I yanked on the unlock button, which he immediately relocked with a casual press of his finger. "Let me out of this fucking car."

Headlights appeared in the rearview mirror, twin beams cutting through the night.

Speeding toward us.

I looked at my phone, the screen a blur through my tears.

7:59 p.m.

Oh God.

It was my father.

He was trying to kill me again.

"Mark, they'll kill me." I clawed at the door.

He checked his phone. “Don't be so dramatic, Sabrina. It's just the fashion industry. Everyone is out for themselves. The sooner you learn that, the better off you'll be."

The way he said it—bored, almost disappointed in me—turned my stomach. He wasn’t evil. He wasn’t even cruel. He just genuinely didn’t care. I was a transaction. A stepping stone. Nothing more.

"Will you shut the fuck up, you fucking douchebag! You have no idea what is really happening here." I yanked on the car door handle again as tears streamed down my face. "Let me out of this fucking car!"

Mark could not have been more disinterested; he simply ignored me and kept scrolling.

And just like that, I was out of time. A dark figure materialized beside the car, moving with lethal purpose. Moonlight glinted off the barrel of a gun and silencer.