The silence that followed was so complete I could hear champagne dripping from the hem of my dress onto the marble floor.
My heart stopped.
Damian’s smile disappeared first.
Victoria’s followed.
Around us, conversations died one by one until nearly forty people were staring in my direction.
But no one was looking at me anymore.
They were looking behind me.
Slowly, I turned.
And forgot how to breathe.
The man standing there was tall enough to make Damian look ordinary.
Black tuxedo.
Black tie.
No visible jewelry except a steel watch that looked understated until you knew enough to recognize what it cost.
His dark hair was swept back from a face that was almost unnervingly composed.
He wasn’t handsome in the clean, polished way Damian was.
He was something more dangerous.
Sharp cheekbones.
A faint scar near his right temple.
Gray eyes that seemed capable of removing warmth from an entire room.
And I knew his face.
Everyone in New York knew his face.
Lucian Vale.
Vale Holdings.
Shipping.
Hotels.
Technology.
Private equity.
Real estate.
Half a dozen companies whose names appeared on buildings I passed every day.
He had inherited nothing.
According to every article ever written about him, Lucian Vale had built his fortune before turning thirty-five and then spent the next six years buying companies from men twice his age.
Business magazines called him ruthless.
Tabloids called him inaccessible.
People whispered darker things.
That politicians returned his calls before their spouses’.
That CEOs resigned when he entered negotiations.
That three men who had tried to destroy him professionally were now living outside the United States.
No one seemed to know much about his private life.
And this man had just called me—
His fiancée.
My mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
Damian recovered before I did.
“Mr.
Vale.”
The transformation was almost impressive.
The arrogance vanished from his face so quickly it might never have existed.
“Sir, I think there’s been some misunderstanding.”
Lucian walked past me.
Not quickly.
Men like him apparently didn’t hurry.
The crowd moved away from him without being asked.
He stopped beside me and looked down at the champagne soaking my dress.
Then he looked at Damian.
“I heard exactly what you said.”
Damian swallowed.
Victoria touched his arm.
“Lucian,” she said, giving him a smile so polished it belonged in a magazine, “I’m sure Damian was only joking.”
Lucian’s gaze shifted toward her.
“Do we know each other?”
The color drained from Victoria’s face.
A few people nearby covered smiles.
She recovered quickly.
“Our families have attended the same events.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Someone coughed.
Victoria’s fingers tightened around Damian’s sleeve.
Lucian turned back to me.
His expression changed.
Barely.
But it changed.
“You’re freezing.”
Before I understood what he was doing, he removed his tuxedo jacket and placed it around my shoulders.
The fabric was warm.
It smelled faintly of cedar and something clean and expensive.
I stared at him.
He leaned closer.
His voice dropped so only I could hear.
“Play along.”
My eyes widened.
“What?”
“Unless you’d prefer them laughing.”
That decided it.
I closed my mouth.
Lucian straightened and looked toward Damian.
“Apologize.”
Damian stared at him.
“Excuse me?”
“To Ava.”
My stomach dropped again.
He knew my name.
Damian laughed nervously.
“Mr.
Vale, really, this is a private joke between old friends.”
“Interesting.”
Lucian glanced toward the champagne glass still in Damian’s hand.
“Does she look amused?”
Damian said nothing.
Lucian stepped closer.
“Apologize.”
“I’m sorry.”
Lucian’s expression didn’t move.
Damian’s jaw tightened.
Then he looked at me.
“I’m sorry, Ava.”
“For?”
His eyes flashed with hatred.
“For spilling champagne on you.”
“And?”
Damian’s nostrils flared.
Lucian waited.
The room waited.
Damian looked like he wanted the floor to split open.
“For embarrassing you.”
Lucian nodded.
“Better.”
Victoria suddenly laughed.
The sound was too bright.
“This is absurd.
Damian, darling, we’re leaving.”
“No.”
Lucian said it quietly.
She stopped.
He turned toward the ballroom.
“Mr.
Langford.”
An older man near the stage froze.
Victoria’s father.
Charles Langford had been smiling with two senators thirty seconds earlier.
He was no longer smiling.
Lucian spoke across the room.
“I believe you wanted to discuss financing for the Riverside redevelopment.”
Charles Langford went pale.
“Yes.”
“That meeting is canceled.”
Victoria’s head snapped toward him.
“Lucian—”
“And Vale Capital will no longer participate.”
Charles hurried toward us.
“Mr.
Vale, surely my daughter’s behavior has nothing to do with—”
“Your daughter’s behavior?”
Lucian glanced at Victoria.
“I was referring to your future son-in-law’s.”
Damian looked physically ill.
My thoughts finally caught up with the situation.
Financing.
Riverside.
I remembered Damian talking about it.
Cross Development had spent almost a year trying to become part of a massive Manhattan redevelopment project.
Damian had bragged to mutual friends that landing the contract would make him partner before thirty-five.
And now Lucian Vale was threatening to destroy it because Damian had poured champagne on me.
No.
Not threatening.
Judging by Charles Langford’s face, he had already done it.
I touched Lucian’s arm.
His eyes dropped to my hand.
Every camera in the room seemed to turn toward us.
“We should talk,” I whispered.
One eyebrow rose.
“Privately.”
For the first time, something almost resembling amusement touched his mouth.
“As my fiancée wishes.”
My cheeks burned.
He offered me his arm.
I took it.
And walked away from Damian Cross without looking back.
I made it eleven steps.
Then curiosity defeated dignity.
I glanced over my shoulder.
Damian was staring at me.
Not mocking.
Not laughing.
Not superior.
For perhaps the first time since I had known him, Damian looked afraid.
And I hated how satisfying that felt.
Lucian led me through a side corridor and into an empty library normally reserved for hotel executives.
The moment the door closed, I dropped his arm.
“What the hell was that?”
He locked the door.
My irritation increased.
“Why are you locking us in?”
“So your ex-boyfriend doesn’t follow us.”
“He’s not going to follow—”
A fist hammered against the door.
“Ava!”
I stared at it.
Lucian looked at me.
I looked at him.
Another knock.
“Ava, open the door.
We need to talk.”
Lucian’s eyebrow rose.
I lowered my voice.
“I hate that you were right.”
“I’m beginning to enjoy being right.”
He walked toward a drinks cabinet.
I followed.
“Who are you?”
That stopped him.
He looked over his shoulder.
“You know who I am.”
“I know what Forbes says you are.”
“That’s usually worse.”
“Why did you call me your fiancée?”
“Because girlfriend sounded temporary.”
I stared.
“That is not an explanation.”
“No.”
He poured water into a glass.
“Drink.”
“I don’t want water.”
“You haven’t eaten properly since approximately nine this morning.”
My skin prickled.
“How do you know that?”
He handed me the glass.
“Drink first.”
I didn’t touch it.
“Tell me.”
“Ava.”
The way he said my name bothered me.
Not because it was threatening.
Because it sounded familiar.
“Have we met?”
His expression became unreadable.
“No.”
“You know my name.”
“Yes.”
“You know when I ate.”
“Yes.”
“You walked into a ballroom at exactly the moment my ex decided to humiliate me.”
“Yes.”
“And now you expect me not to find that strange?”
“I expect you to find many things strange tonight.”
A chill ran through me.
Outside, Damian struck the door again.
“Ava!”
Lucian’s jaw tightened.
He crossed the room and opened the door without warning.
Damian nearly stumbled inside.
“What?”
Lucian asked.
Damian straightened.
His attention went directly to me.
“Ava, can I speak to you alone?”
“No,” I said.
His face changed.
He wasn’t used to hearing that word from me.
“Ava.”
“I said no.”
“This is ridiculous.
You don’t even know this man.”
Lucian leaned against the doorframe.
Damian pointed toward him.
“You think this is funny?”
“No.”
Lucian’s voice remained calm.
“That’s why you’re still standing.”
Damian went silent.
I should have been frightened by the sentence.
Instead, something warm and dangerous spread through my chest.
Damian turned back to me.
“You’re really engaged?”
I folded Lucian’s jacket tighter around myself.
“Why do you care?”
“Because six months ago—”
“Six months ago you dumped me by text.”
“That wasn’t—”
“At 3:17 a.m.”
His mouth closed.
“You said I didn’t fit your future.”
“Ava, I was under pressure.”
“You were on a yacht with Victoria fourteen days later.”
“That relationship happened afterward.”
“Eleven days.”
He blinked.
“What?”
“The yacht pictures were fourteen days later.
The first photo of you together was eleven.”
He actually had the decency to look embarrassed.
Only briefly.
Then his gaze sharpened.
“So this is revenge?”
I laughed.
“For what?”
“This.”
He gestured between Lucian and me.
“You expect me to believe Ava Bennett went from organizing cocktail tables to marrying Lucian Vale in six months?”
The room changed.
I felt it before I understood why.
Lucian stopped looking bored.
Damian had made a mistake.
A serious one.
“You seem confused,” Lucian said.
Damian scoffed.
“About what?”
“About which one of us is lucky.”
Damian hesitated.
Lucian moved toward him.
“You speak as though Ava’s value depends upon the man beside her.”
His voice stayed quiet.
“That probably explains why you never recognized it when she was beside you.”
I couldn’t breathe.
Damian’s face hardened.
“You don’t know anything about our relationship.”
“I know she worked two jobs while you completed graduate school.”
My heart stopped.
“I know she covered seven months of rent.”
Damian went pale.
“I know she gave you forty-eight hundred dollars for tuition in October.”
I stared at Lucian.
“I know she purchased the suit you wore to the interview that launched your career.”
“Stop.”
The word escaped me.
Lucian looked at me.
“How do you know that?”
For the first time since entering the ballroom, uncertainty crossed his face.
Damian noticed too.
He smiled.
“There it is.”
His confidence returned in an instant.
“You don’t know, do you, Ava?”
“Know what?”
Damian laughed.
This time there was no humor in it.
“Ask your fiancé why he knows so much about you.”
“Leave,” Lucian said.
“Oh, I absolutely will.”
Damian stepped backward.
“But first maybe she should ask where Bellmere Events got tonight’s contract.”
My stomach tightened.
“What?”
“Or how a junior assistant with six months of event experience somehow got assigned to the Vale Foundation gala.”
“That’s enough.”
Damian smiled wider.
“Ask him.”
Then he walked away.
Lucian closed the door.
I stared at his back.
“Tell me he’s lying.”
Silence.
“Lucian.”
He turned.
“Bellmere was selected through a standard vendor process.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
“No.”
“Did you arrange for me to work tonight?”
Another silence.
That was my answer.
I stepped backward.
“Oh my God.”
“Ava—”
“You did.”
“Yes.”
My pulse thundered in my ears.
“Why?”
He looked toward the window.
Forty floors below us, Manhattan glittered beneath the night sky.
“I needed to meet you.”
“You could have called.”
“You wouldn’t have answered.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Stop doing that!”
My voice cracked through the room.
“Stop acting like you know me.”
His eyes returned to mine.
“I know you drink coffee too strong when you’re tired.”
My anger vanished for one stunned second.
“I know you hate thunderstorms but pretend you don’t.”
Another step backward.
“I know you still keep your grandmother’s recipe cards in a yellow tin even though you rarely cook.”
“How?”
His voice softened.
“And I know the bracelet you sold four years ago had twelve small sapphires around an oval locket.”
The world tilted.
My grandmother’s bracelet.
I had never posted photographs of it.
Never mentioned it online.
Damian barely remembered what it looked like.
“How do you know about that?”
Lucian reached inside his tuxedo.
My entire body went cold.
He took out a small velvet box.
Blue.
Faded at the edges.
I recognized it before he opened it.
“No.”
He lifted the lid.
Twelve sapphires caught the library lights.
Around an oval locket.
My grandmother’s bracelet.
The bracelet I had sold to a pawnshop in Queens four years earlier.
The bracelet I had cried over for weeks because it had been the last valuable thing she left me.
My knees weakened.
Lucian caught my elbow.
I ripped my arm away.
“Where did you get that?”
“I bought it.”
“When?”
“Four years ago.”
My breath caught.
“What?”
“The afternoon after you sold it.”
I stared at him.
“That’s impossible.”
“It isn’t.”
“Why would you buy my grandmother’s bracelet four years ago?”
Lucian closed the box.
Because suddenly he didn’t look like New York’s most feared businessman.
He looked like a man standing at the edge of something he had avoided for years.
“I knew your grandmother.”
The anger drained out of me.
“You knew Nana?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
His eyes lowered briefly.
“Evelyn Bennett saved my life.”
The words landed strangely.
“My grandmother was a librarian.”
“I know.”
“She died eight years ago.”
“I know that too.”
I shook my head.
“No.
You’re mistaken.”
“I’m not.”
“She never mentioned you.”
“She promised she wouldn’t.”
A cold sensation traveled down my spine.
“Why?”
Lucian opened the bracelet’s locket.
Inside were two tiny photographs.
I knew the first.
My mother.
She was seventeen in the picture, laughing toward the camera.
But the second photograph had never been there before.
It showed a boy.
Maybe fourteen.
Thin.
Bruised.
Dark-haired.
Gray-eyed.
Lucian.
I looked from the photograph to his face.
“What happened to you?”
Before he could answer, his phone rang.
He looked at the screen.
And whatever softness had appeared vanished.
“Excuse me.”
He answered.
“Vale.”
Silence.
His eyes sharpened.
“When?”
Another silence.
“Keep security there.
Nobody leaves.”
He ended the call.
“What happened?”
He looked at me.
“We need to go.”
“I’m not going anywhere until you explain—”
“Someone entered your apartment tonight.”
My blood froze.
“What?”
“They disabled the building camera at 8:42.”
“How would you know that?”
“I have security monitoring your building.”
“You have what?”
“Be angry later.”
“I’m already angry!”
“They didn’t take your television.
They didn’t take cash.”
His face had become terrifyingly calm.
“They searched the bedroom.”
My mouth went dry.
“For what?”
“I don’t know.”
Another knock came at the library door.
Lucian immediately stepped between me and it.
Not Damian this time.
A man’s voice.
“Mr.
Vale.
It’s Mercer.”
Lucian opened the door.
A broad-shouldered man in a dark suit stepped inside carrying an envelope.
He gave me one brief glance before speaking.
“This was delivered to the security desk ten minutes ago.”
“To whom?”
“Ms.
Bennett.”
My stomach twisted.
Lucian took the envelope.
My name was written across the front.
AVA BENNETT.
Black ink.
No address.
No stamp.
“Give it to me.”
Lucian didn’t.
“It may be safer if—”
“It has my name on it.”
Our eyes locked.
After a moment, he handed it over.
The paper felt heavy.
Inside was a photograph.
I pulled it free.
My lungs stopped working.
It was a picture of me.
Sleeping.
In my bedroom.
Taken recently.
Very recently.
I knew because the pillowcase visible beneath my face was one I had bought three weeks ago.
On the back, someone had written three words.
HE FOUND YOU.
My fingers started shaking.
“Who found me?”
Lucian snatched the photograph.
For the first time, genuine fear crossed his face.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
“You know,” I whispered.
He said nothing.
“Lucian.”
Mercer closed the door.
“What does it mean?”
Lucian looked at him.
“Get the car.”
“Already downstairs.”
“And double the team.”
Mercer left.
I stepped in front of Lucian.
“No.”
“Ava.”
“No more mysterious commands.
No more pretending we’re engaged.
No more secretly watching my apartment.
Tell me what is happening.”
His jaw tightened.
“Your grandmother wasn’t simply a librarian.”
I laughed once.
It sounded almost hysterical.
“Apparently nobody in my family was who I thought they were tonight.”
“She became a librarian after she left another life.”
“What life?”
He hesitated.
That frightened me more than anything else.
“Lucian.”
“She worked for my father.”
My pulse quickened.
“As what?”
“An accountant.”
“That doesn’t explain any of this.”
“She wasn’t keeping financial accounts.”
He looked at the photograph again.
“She kept records of people.”
“What people?”
“Politicians.
Judges.
Businessmen.
Police officers.”
My stomach turned.
“Records of what?”
“The things they wanted buried.”
For several seconds, I could only stare at him.
“My grandmother blackmailed people?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“My father did.”
The answer came without emotion.
“Evelyn kept the evidence.”
I sank slowly into a chair.
“This is insane.”
“Yes.”
“She was the sweetest person I ever knew.”
“Both things can be true.”
“No.”
I stood again.
“No.
You don’t get to walk into my life, call me your fiancée, tell me you’ve been watching me, and then rewrite my grandmother into some criminal conspiracy.”
“I’m not rewriting anything.”
“Then prove it.”
Lucian became silent.
I held out my hand.
“Prove it.”
He looked at my palm.
Then at me.
Finally, he reached inside his jacket again.
This time he removed a key.
Small.
Old.
Brass.
A number was engraved into its surface.
I stared at it.
My stomach dropped.
3:17.
The exact time Damian had sent the breakup text.
“That number,” I whispered.
Lucian’s eyes narrowed.
“What?”
“Damian broke up with me at 3:17.”
Lucian went very still.
“That exact time?”
“Yes.”
“Did he ever use that number before?”
“No.”
A terrible thought moved behind his eyes.
“What?”
He didn’t answer.
“What does 317 mean?”
Lucian closed his hand around the key.
“It opens a safe-deposit box.”
“Where?”
“Switzerland.”
I laughed again.
This night had crossed beyond absurd.
“Of course it does.”
“The box belonged to your grandmother.”
“Why do you have the key?”
“Because she gave it to me eight years ago.”
“When she died?”
“The night before.”
My eyes burned.
“You saw her the night before she died?”
“Yes.”
“You were there?”
“Yes.”
“And you never contacted me?”
“I promised her I wouldn’t.”
“Why?”
“Because she said you would be safer if you knew nothing.”
My anger broke.
“Safer from whom?”
Before he could answer, his phone vibrated again.
A message this time.
He read it.
His face changed completely.
“What?”
He turned the screen toward me.
It was a photograph taken inside my apartment.
My bedroom.
My dresser.
One drawer pulled open.
The lining had been ripped away.
Beneath it was a hidden compartment I had never known existed.
Inside that compartment lay a black notebook.
Except the notebook had already been removed.
The photograph showed only its outline in the dust.
Below the image, Lucian’s security chief had written:
OBJECT MISSING BEFORE TEAM ARRIVED.
I looked up.
“What was in there?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re lying.”
“No.”
“You always know.”
“Not this time.”
His phone rang again.
He answered immediately.
“What?”
I watched his expression harden.
Then his eyes moved toward me.
“Say that again.”
Silence.
“No.
Do not approach him.”
Another pause.
“Send me the footage.”
He hung up.
“What now?”
Lucian didn’t answer.
“Lucian.”
He walked toward a television mounted inside a cabinet.
His phone connected to it.
Security footage appeared.
My apartment building lobby.
Timestamp: 8:37 p.m.
A man entered through the front doors.
Baseball cap.
Dark coat.
Head lowered.
He walked toward the elevator.
Then he raised his face.
I stopped breathing.
“No.”
Lucian said nothing.
The video continued.
The man pressed the elevator button.
Looked directly into the security camera.
And smiled.
“No,” I whispered again.
Because I knew that smile.
I had loved it once.
Kissed it.
Trusted it.
Worked twelve-hour shifts for the man wearing it.
Damian.
The timestamp changed.
8:38 p.m.
Nearly an hour before he appeared beside Victoria in the ballroom.
My mind scrambled for explanations.
“He must have had a reason.”
Lucian looked at me.
I hated myself for saying it.
But some part of me was still trying to make reality behave normally.
“Maybe he wanted something he left there when we were together.”
“He hasn’t lived with you for over a year.”
“How do you know that?”
Lucian ignored the question.
The footage skipped forward.
At 8:51, Damian exited the elevator.
This time he carried something under his coat.
The black notebook.
My blood went cold.
Damian stopped at the front doors.
Then something strange happened.
A second man stepped into frame outside.
Damian froze.
Even through grainy footage, I saw fear transform his face.
The stranger entered.
Older.
Silver hair.
Dark overcoat.
Damian handed him the notebook immediately.
No argument.
No hesitation.
Like someone completing an order.
The older man turned slightly toward the camera.
Lucian inhaled sharply.
“Impossible.”
I looked at him.
“You know him?”
He didn’t answer.
On-screen, the silver-haired man removed his gloves.
A gold signet ring gleamed on his right hand.
Lucian took one step toward the screen.
“No.”
“Who is he?”
The stranger and Damian left together.
The footage ended.
Lucian stood frozen.
His face had lost all color.
I grabbed his arm.
“Who is he?”
Lucian finally looked at me.
For the first time all evening, the most feared man in New York did not look powerful.
He looked haunted.
“That man,” he said quietly, “is my father.”
I stared at him.
“You said your father was dead.”
“He is.”
The room seemed to shrink around us.
“What do you mean, he is?”
“I watched him die eighteen years ago.”
Neither of us moved.
Then my phone vibrated.
A text message.
Unknown number.
My fingers shook as I opened it.
There was no greeting.
No explanation.
Only a photograph.
Damian was sitting in the back seat of a car.
Blood ran from his nose.
His hands appeared to be tied.
His expression was terrified.
Beside him sat the silver-haired man from the security footage.
Lucian’s supposedly dead father.
Under the photograph was a message.
AVA,
LUCIAN HAS LIED TO YOU SINCE BEFORE YOU KNEW HIS NAME.
IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY YOUR GRANDMOTHER REALLY DIED, COME ALONE.
Then another message appeared.
An address.
Brooklyn.
I knew it.
My chest tightened.
It was the address of the old apartment Damian and I had shared.
The place where I had supported him through school.
The place where he had promised that when he made it, we made it.
The place I had moved out of after he broke my heart.
Lucian read the screen over my shoulder.
“No.”
I looked up.
“You’re not going.”
“He knows what happened to my grandmother.”
“It’s a trap.”
“Obviously.”
“Ava.”
“And Damian is there.”
Lucian’s eyes became colder.
“Damian entered your apartment, stole something belonging to your grandmother, and delivered it to a man who should have been dead for eighteen years.”
“I know.”
“You owe him nothing.”
“I know.”
“Then why do you care what happens to him?”
I looked at Damian’s terrified face on my screen.
For six months, I had imagined seeing him regret losing me.
I had imagined him jealous.
Humiliated.
Broken.
I had even imagined tonight’s expression on his face when Lucian called me his fiancée.
But I had never imagined Damian afraid for his life.
And I discovered something strange.
I didn’t love him anymore.
Maybe I hadn’t for longer than I realized.
But I also didn’t want him dead.
“I’m going.”
Lucian stared at me.
“No.”
“You can’t stop me.”
“I absolutely can.”
“Try.”
Something dangerous flashed in his eyes.
For one second, neither of us moved.
Then Lucian did something I didn’t expect.
He smiled.
Not pleasantly.
Not warmly.
The smile of a man reaching a decision someone else would regret.
“All right.”
Suspicion crawled through me.
“All right?”
“You want answers?”
“Yes.”
“So do I.”
He took my phone and forwarded the address to Mercer.
Then he handed it back.
“We go together.”
“The message says alone.”
“The message was written by a man who allegedly died when I was twenty-three.
I’m comfortable disappointing him.”
Despite everything, a shocked laugh escaped me.
Lucian’s gaze softened for half a second.
Then the library door opened.
Mercer entered.
“We have another problem.”
Lucian’s expression hardened.
“What?”
Mercer looked at me.
Then back at him.
“The Langfords left.”
“So?”
“They didn’t leave together.”
My stomach tightened.
“Victoria?”
Mercer nodded.
“She disappeared from the east service corridor seven minutes ago.”
Lucian frowned.
“And?”
“The cameras caught who she left with.”
He handed Lucian his phone.
Lucian looked at the screen.
Every muscle in his body went rigid.
“What is it?”
I asked.
Neither man answered.
I took the phone.
The photograph showed Victoria Langford entering an elevator.
Beside her was a woman wearing a black evening gown.
Her face was turned toward the camera.
My fingers went numb.
The phone nearly fell from my hand.
Because I knew that woman too.
I had seen her face in photographs my entire childhood.
On my grandmother’s mantel.
Inside old albums.
In the tiny picture hidden inside the sapphire bracelet.
My mother.
The woman I had been told died in a car accident when I was six years old.
The woman whose funeral I remembered.
The woman I had spent twenty-three years mourning.
Except the timestamp on the security photograph was from three minutes ago.
And my dead mother was looking directly into the camera.
Smiling.
Then my own phone rang.
Unknown number.
Lucian reached for it.
I stepped away.
And answered.
For several seconds, there was only silence.
Then a woman spoke.
One sentence.
A voice I remembered from dreams.
“Ava, sweetheart, whatever Lucian Vale tells you, do not let him take you to Brooklyn.”
My entire body turned to ice.
“Mom?”
A soft breath came through the phone.
Then she whispered:
“He’s the reason you were told I was dead.”
The call ended.
I slowly lifted my eyes to Lucian.
He had heard every word.
And this time, when I searched his face for denial—
Lucian Vale said nothing.
…If you want to know what happened next, please type “YES” and like for more.
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Source: Stories of Destiny · Thanh Thanh
