I thought of Ethan’s expensive watches, his confidence, the way he always seemed rich without explaining why.
“What happened to him?”
“He vanished from public life after an investigation that never reached court.”
My phone buzzed in my pocket.
Chloe.
Her name lit the screen like a flare.
I answered immediately.
“Chloe?”
For a second, all I heard was rain or static.
Then her voice came, thin and hurried.
“Liv, I need to talk to you.”
I straightened. “Where are you?”
“I can’t stay long. Ethan thinks I’m getting my nails done.”
Lorenzo took one step closer, listening without pretending otherwise.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Chloe inhaled shakily.
“I found something. I don’t understand all of it, but your name is there.”
“My name where?”
“In Ethan’s files.”
The office seemed to tilt.
“What files?”
“Financial documents. Contracts. Some hotel paperwork too. I shouldn’t have looked, but after last night, after seeing Lorenzo—” She broke off. “Liv, why is Ethan meeting with someone named Mara?”
My eyes flew to Lorenzo.
His face went completely still.
“Chloe,” I said carefully, “listen to me. Where are you right now?”
“At his condo. He forgot his tablet, and I—”
A door opened on her end.
Chloe stopped breathing.
A man’s voice sounded in the background, muffled but close.
“Who are you talking to?”
The line went dead.
I stared at my phone.
For a second, nobody moved.
Then Lorenzo reached for his coat.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Finding your sister.”
I grabbed my purse and followed him.
“No,” he said.
I did not stop walking.
“Lorenzo, if my name is in those files, this is not just your old secret or Chloe’s bad decision. It’s mine too.”
He looked at me, and I saw the conflict in him—the instinct to command, the intelligence to know it would fail.
Tobias appeared in the doorway as if summoned by the tension itself.
“Car’s ready,” he said.
We moved quickly through the private corridor and down to the underground entrance. The hotel’s polished glamour disappeared behind us, replaced by concrete, fluorescent light, and the low growl of an engine already running.
In the car, Tobias drove without asking for an address. Apparently men like Lorenzo did not need to explain destinations aloud.
I sat beside Lorenzo, clutching my phone.
“Call her again,” he said.
I did.
Voicemail.
Again.
Voicemail.
Each unanswered ring scraped at old guilt. Chloe had hurt me. Chloe had betrayed me. But beneath all that was the memory of her small hand in mine crossing busy streets, her sleepy voice asking me to check the closet for monsters, her teenage tears after our mother told her she would never be taken seriously if she kept dressing like a child.
I had spent months trying to cut her out of my heart.
Now fear found the roots still intact.
“She said my name was in Ethan’s files,” I whispered. “Why would my name be there?”
Lorenzo’s answer came slowly.
“When your fiancé betrayed you, did he leave immediately?”
The question startled me.
“No. Not immediately. He tried to explain. Then he tried to blame stress. Then he said we should wait before telling people the engagement was over.”
“How long?”