Chapter 4: The Ascent into White

The journey to Zermatt was a blur of gray skies and biting cold.

I traveled light.

A heavy wool coat, my passport, and a customized 1911 pistol holstered at my ribs.

I didn’t know if I was going to kill her, beg her, or both.

The coordinates led to a secluded valley, accessible only by a private funicular and a two-mile trek through deep snow.

I paid a local guide exorbitant amounts of Swiss Francs to bring me to the edge of the property line, then ordered him to leave.

I stood in the knee-deep snow, the freezing wind whipping at my coat.

In the distance, framed by the jagged peaks of the Matterhorn, sat a breathtaking modern chalet of dark wood and floor-to-ceiling glass.

Warm, golden light spilled from the windows onto the snow.

Smoke drifted lazily from the stone chimney.

It looked peaceful.

It looked like a world untouched by the blood and dirt of the life I led.

I unholstered my gun, keeping it down by my side, and began the long walk toward the front door.

Every step felt heavy.

My mind raced.

Would she have armed guards?

Would she trigger an explosive?

Clara was a strategist.

She wouldn’t just sit here waiting to be killed.

I reached the heavy oak door.

I didn’t knock.

I pushed the handle.

It was unlocked.

I stepped inside, bringing the gun up, sweeping the room.

The interior was magnificent.

A roaring fire crackled in a massive stone hearth.

Expensive Persian rugs covered the heated hardwood floors.

Jazz music—Miles Davis, her favorite—played softly from a high-end sound system.

“You’re tracking snow on the rugs, Arthur.”

I froze.

The voice came from the reading nook overlooking the valley.

I turned, my gun leveled.

Clara was sitting in a plush leather armchair.

She wore a thick cream-colored cashmere sweater and dark leggings, her bare feet tucked underneath her.

Her hair, usually pulled into a severe, perfect bun, cascaded loosely over her shoulders.

She was holding a mug of tea.

She looked entirely unbothered by the barrel of the gun pointed at her chest.

“Put it down, Arthur,” she said softly, taking a sip of her tea.

“If I wanted you dead, you wouldn’t have made it off the runway in New York.”

I didn’t lower the gun.

My heart was pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears.

Seeing her—actually seeing her in the flesh after months of chasing a shadow—hit me like a physical blow.

She looked beautiful.

She looked free.

“You destroyed my life,” I rasped, my voice shaking with a mixture of rage and something pathetic that felt like relief.

Clara lowered her mug and met my eyes.

Her gaze was as calm and unreadable as the night she had folded that bloody handkerchief.

“I didn’t destroy anything,” she replied evenly.

“I simply stopped maintaining it.

There is a difference.”

“You locked the accounts.

You wiped the servers.

You left me to the wolves!”

“I left you to yourself,” she corrected, finally standing up.

She walked toward me, completely ignoring the gun.

She stopped a few feet away, close enough that I could smell the familiar scent of vanilla and bergamot she always wore.

“For five years, Arthur, I built the walls that kept the wolves out.

I managed your temper.

I smoothed over your arrogance.

I turned a petty thug with ambition into an emperor.

And in return, you treated me like a machine.

Like furniture.”

“I paid you well!”

I shouted, the gun trembling in my hand.

“Money?”

Clara laughed, a sad, hollow sound.

“You think this was about money?

I took eighty thousand dollars to set up my new life.

Do you know how much I left behind in those accounts?

Three hundred million.

If I wanted your money, I would have taken it all.”

“Then what do you want?”

I demanded, stepping closer, the barrel of the gun inches from her chest.

“Why did you build the dead-man’s switch?

Why did you ruin me?”

Clara looked at the gun, then looked up into my eyes.

She didn’t flinch.

She didn’t blink.

“Because I needed you to understand.”

“Understand what?”

“What the word ‘replaceable’ actually means.”