Chapter 4 - The Hound on the Trail
My two-bedroom apartment on the third floor of an old brick building in Pilsen had always been my sanctuary. It smelled of old paper, cinnamon tea, and the rain drifting in through the slightly warped wooden window frames.
I didn't turn on the lights when I came home at midnight. I locked the triple deadbolts on the front door, drew the heavy velvet curtains across the windows, and sat down on the floor in the middle of my living room.
My laptop sat on the small coffee table. I opened the screen, the pale light illuminating my face in the dark room.
The internet was screaming my name.
WHERE IS CLARA VANCE?
THE MYSTERY OF THE ASHFORD BALLROOM.
BALLROOM CHAMPION FOUND WORKING AS CHICAGO SERVER.
Articles were popping up on major news sites—The Chicago Tribune, The Daily Mail, even international dance forums I hadn't visited in over a decade. Old photographs of me from my competition days were side-by-side with screenshots from the TikTok video recorded at Ashford Tower.
In the old photos, I was twenty-two, wearing a shimmering gold dress, my dark hair styled in a sleek bun, laughing as I held the Grand Prix trophy high above my head beside my former partner, Julian Mercer.
Julian.
Just seeing his face on the screen made a sharp, cold knot form in my stomach.
Julian had been the darling of the international dance world—charismatic, handsome, and utterly toxic behind closed doors. When my doctor told us after the fall in Vienna that I would need six months of intensive physical therapy before I could even attempt a basic spin, Julian hadn't waited. He had replaced me with an eighteen-year-old Russian dancer within three weeks, claiming in a press interview that I was "physically broken and mentally unstable."
He had taken our corporate sponsors, our training budget, and my reputation, leaving me alone in a private clinic in Austria with a mounting pile of medical bills I couldn't pay.
That was why I had walked away. Not because my ankle couldn't heal, but because I realized that the glittering world of competitive dance was filled with men like Julian Mercer and Walter Ashford—men who consumed talent, spat out the broken pieces, and called it prestige.
My cell phone buzzed on the table beside my laptop.
An unknown number.
I stared at it as it vibrated against the wood, three times, four times, before going to voicemail. A second later, a text message flashed on the screen.
Unknown Number: Hello, Clara. It's Julian. I just saw the video from Chicago. You still tilt your head slightly to the left before you execute a drop. I'd recognize that anywhere. We need to talk. I'm flying in from New York tomorrow morning.
I stared at the glowing text, my breath catching in my throat.
Before I could process the surge of panic rising in my chest, my phone buzzed again. This time, it was an incoming call from the number on the black business card in my pocket.
Ethan.
I answered it, placing the phone to my ear without saying a word.
"Clara?" Ethan’s voice came through, crisp, clear, and laced with urgent tension. "Are you home?"
"How did you get my phone number?" I asked quietly.
"I owns the agency that hired you," Ethan admitted without hesitation. "Clara, listen to me. My father just hired Marcus Kane."
I went cold. Marcus Kane was Chicago’s most infamous crisis manager—a ruthless fixer known for digging up dirt, fabricating scandals, and utterly destroying the personal lives of anyone who threatened his billionaire clients.
"Kane is already pulling your tax records, your medical files from Austria, and contacting your old associates," Ethan warned. "He’s planning to launch a smear campaign tomorrow morning, claiming you're an unstable stalker who targeted my father's event to extort money."
"Let him try," I said, though my hands were trembling.
"You don't know Kane," Ethan said fiercely. "He doesn't play fair, Clara. He’s already reached out to your old dance partner in New York."
May you like
I closed my eyes. "Julian."
"Yes," Ethan said, leaning closer to his receiver. "Julian Mercer just accepted a fifty-thousand-dollar retainer from my father to give an exclusive interview tomorrow afternoon on national television, detailing your 'mental breakdown' twelve years ago."
