From Victim to Victor

I stared at my laptop screen, my fingers hovering over the keyboard. The cursor blinked on the Southwest Airlines booking page, mocking me with its simplicity. Just a few clicks and I could create the perfect smokescreen.

"Are you sure about this?" Alex Rivera asked, his voice low over the phone. I'd called him after our meeting at Third Wave Coffee, and he'd agreed to help me set up this diversion.

"It has to look real," I replied, clicking on a one-way ticket to Los Angeles for tomorrow morning. "Riley's been monitoring my social media since the Reddit post. She'll see this."

"And you're certain she'll follow you?"

I thought about Riley's increasingly erratic behavior since the restraining order—the way she'd been showing up at my favorite coffee shops, driving past our house at odd hours.

"She can't stand not knowing what I'm doing," I said, selecting the earliest flight. "Especially if she thinks I'm running away."

After completing the booking, I immediately posted a cryptic message on Instagram: "Sometimes you need to get away to remember who you are. #LACalling #NewBeginnings."

I deliberately left out any mention of Ethan or Riley, but I knew that wouldn't matter. The timing would be enough to trigger Riley's paranoia.

"Now we wait," I told Alex, closing my laptop.

---

Riley's reaction came faster than even I had anticipated.

"Is she serious?" Riley's voice was high-pitched and slightly slurred. I could hear the clink of glass in the background of her call to Ethan. "She's actually running away?"

I wasn't supposed to be listening, of course. But Alex had helped me install a simple monitoring program on Ethan's laptop—a precaution he'd insisted on after discovering how extensively Ethan had been tracking my movements.

"Don't overreact," Ethan's voice came through clearly. "She's probably just trying to make us look bad."

"But what if she's going to see investors?" Riley's voice cracked. "What if she tells them about us?"

"About us?" Ethan's laugh was cold. "There is no 'us,' Riley. There's what we're building, and what I'm building with Zoey."

The silence on the other end of the line was deafening.

"Don't be dramatic," Ethan continued, his voice softening slightly. "Zoey's flight to LA changes nothing. We stick to the plan."

But Riley wasn't listening anymore. I could hear her breathing heavily, then the sound of another glass being filled.

"I need to know where she goes," Riley muttered, more to herself than to Ethan. "I need to see what she's doing."

---

The next morning, I woke before dawn and dressed carefully—jeans, a simple blouse, and comfortable shoes. Nothing like what I'd normally wear for a flight. I left my phone charging on my nightstand with location services enabled, knowing Riley would be tracking it.

"Stay, Nova," I whispered to my dog, who watched me with concerned eyes as I slipped out the back door.

I'd parked my second car—an old Honda that Ethan rarely noticed—two blocks away the night before. Now I slid behind the wheel and pulled out a burner phone Alex had given me.

"I'm on the road," I texted him.

"Remember," he replied immediately, "stay off major highways. Take 680 to 24, then east on 580. I've mapped out the back roads from there."

I followed his instructions meticulously, winding through residential neighborhoods and smaller highways that would be less likely to have traffic cameras. The Tesla's navigation system was disconnected—another precaution Alex had insisted on.

"Riley's moving," Alex's text came through as I passed Livermore. "She just left her apartment in a hurry."

I smiled grimly. The bait had been taken.

---

The Sacramento County Recorder's office was housed in a nondescript government building downtown. I'd chosen it specifically because it was far enough from our normal orbit that no one would think to look for me here.

"Can I help you?" the clerk asked as I approached the counter.

"I need to see property transfer records for the past six months," I replied, sliding across my ID. "Specifically for properties purchased by Morgan Realty Holdings."

She raised an eyebrow but didn't question me. "That'll be $20 for the search."

I paid and waited as she disappeared into a back room. Twenty minutes later, she returned with a thick folder.

"These are all the transfers that match your criteria," she said, setting it before me.

I spread the documents across the table in the corner of the room, my designer's eye for patterns immediately picking out inconsistencies. There were five properties total—all high-end condos or houses, all purchased within the past three months.

And all funded by wire transfers from accounts I recognized.

"Can I make copies of these?" I asked.

"Ten cents a page," she replied.

As the copier hummed, my burner phone vibrated with an urgent text from Alex.

"Riley just checked your location again. She's heading east on 80. She knows you're not in LA."

My blood ran cold. How had she figured it out so quickly?

I grabbed the copies and my purse, rushing toward the exit.

---

I'd barely made it back to my car when my phone rang—Alex again.

"She's closing in on you," he said without preamble. "Her phone just pinged off a tower near Dixon. She's driving fast."

"Shit," I muttered, sliding behind the wheel. "How did she find me?"

"Find My Friends," Alex replied grimly. "She must have accessed your iCloud somehow."

I pulled out of the parking lot, my mind racing. "I'm heading back to 80," I decided. "If I can make it to Davis, I can lose her in the campus traffic."

"Negative," Alex said sharply. "She's already on 80 heading east. You need to take surface streets until you're past Vacaville."

I switched on the Tesla's navigation system, overriding the safety protocols Alex had put in place. "I need to see where she is," I explained.

The map showed my location and, seconds later, Riley's—her phone creating a small blue dot moving rapidly along Highway 80.

"She's speeding," I realized as I watched the dot move. "And she's weaving."

"She's drinking," Alex confirmed, his voice tight with concern. "I've been monitoring her social media. She posted a video twenty minutes ago—wine glass in hand, ranting about how you're trying to ruin her life."

I felt a chill run through me as I pulled onto a side street, trying to put distance between us.

"Zoey," Alex's voice was urgent now, "get off the road. Find a police station or a crowded mall—somewhere public."

But it was too late. As I approached the on-ramp to Highway 80, I saw Riley's white Range Rover barreling toward me in the distance, clearly exceeding the speed limit.

She'd seen my car.

I could see her face through the windshield—eyes wild, mouth contorted in rage as she accelerated directly toward me.

Time seemed to slow as I watched her raise a wine glass to her lips with one hand, her other hand gripping the steering wheel too tightly.

Then she threw the empty glass aside and floored the accelerator.

The impact came with a deafening crash of metal and shattering glass. Her SUV slammed into the rear of my Tesla at seventy-five miles per hour, sending us both spinning across multiple lanes of traffic.

My car rotated wildly, the world outside becoming a blur of colors and sounds—screeching tires, shattering glass, the groan of metal twisting.

When it finally came to rest on the shoulder of the highway, I was hanging from my seatbelt, my head spinning and my body vibrating with adrenaline.

Through the cracked windshield, I could see Riley's Range Rover had flipped onto its side twenty feet ahead.

And smoke was beginning to rise from both vehicles.