The conference room was cold. Ethan had arrived early, made coffee, set out the financial reports Adrian had sent over the night before. The numbers were spread across the table in front of him, page after page of expenditures and projections and line items that didn't quite add up. He had been staring at them for twenty minutes before Claire walked in. She was still wearing the same guarded expression from yesterday. She didn't say good morning. Just pulled out a chair and sat down across from him. "Adrian's running late," she said. "Traffic." Ethan nodded. Seraphina came in a moment later, carrying a tablet and a leather folder. She looked better than she had the day before, less pale, but there was a tightness around her eyes that hadn't been there before the sick days. She sat at the end of the table, between them, and opened her folder. "Let's start without him," she said. "I can walk you through what we found." Claire looked at her. "You found something?" Seraphina pull

They found Adrian at a café near his apartment.Not the one he usually went to with Claire. A different one. Smaller. Quieter. The kind of place where no one would think to look for him. He was sitting in the back corner with a laptop open and a cup of coffee going cold beside it, and when he looked up and saw Ethan and Claire walking toward him, his face did something complicated. Surprise. Calculation. The quick rearrangement of features into something that looked like welcome."Claire," he said, standing. "Ethan. What are you doing here?""We need to talk," Ethan said.Adrian looked at Claire. She wasn't smiling. He sat back down."Okay," he said. "Talk."Ethan pulled out the chair across from Adrian and sat. Claire sat next to him, close enough that their shoulders almost touched. She had her hands folded on the table in front of her, fingers laced together like she was holding herself in place."We've been reviewing the phase one expenditures," Ethan said. "Seraphina found a patt

Ethan's car was still warm when he pulled into the hospital parking lot. He didn't remember the drive. Red lights, turns, the city disappearing behind him—none of it stuck. Only the image of Claire on a hospital bed, tubes in her arms, her face pale and still.He parked badly, didn't bother to straighten the wheels, and walked fast through the emergency entrance.The fluorescent lights were too bright. The air smelled of antiseptic and fear. He found the reception desk and gave Claire's name and the nurse pointed him to the surgical waiting area on the third floor.The elevator took forever.When the doors opened, he saw Adrian.He was sitting in a plastic chair against the wall, elbows on his knees, head down. A half-empty cup of coffee sat on the floor beside him. He looked up when he heard footsteps, and something in his face shifted. Not surprise. Recognition."Ethan.""What happened."Adrian stood up. "She collapsed at her desk. Around two. I heard something fall and went to chec

Claire was awake when the doctor came in. Pale, tired, but her eyes were clear. Ethan had moved his chair closer to the bed during the night, and he was still there when she opened her eyes. She looked at him like she was surprised to see him still in the room."You're here," she said."I said I would stay."She didn't smile, but something in her face softened. The monitor beeped steadily. The morning light through the blinds made everything look washed out, like an old photograph.The doctor was a woman in her forties with kind eyes and a clipboard. She introduced herself as Dr. Patel. She looked at Claire's chart and then at both of them."The tests came back. It's not appendicitis."Claire's brow furrowed. "Then what is it?"Dr. Patel hesitated. That hesitation lasted maybe two seconds, but Ethan noticed it. He had been in enough business meetings to recognize when someone was choosing their next words carefully."We found traces of something in your blood. A substance that shouldn

The gala was in full swing by the time Ethan stopped pretending to enjoy it.Chloe had drifted toward the bar, chatting with a woman who worked in commercial real estate. Andrew was working the room like a politician, shaking hands, laughing at jokes that weren't funny, steering conversations toward the partnership and the foundation and the bright future of Cross Industries. Every few minutes he glanced at Ethan, checking that his prop was still in position.Ethan stood near a pillar with a glass of champagne he hadn't touched in an hour and watched his brother perform.A man in a silver suit approached. Older, sixties, with the confident posture of someone who had been wealthy long enough to forget what it felt like to worry about money."Mr. Cross," the man said. "Andrew tells me you're coming back to the family business."Ethan looked at him. "I own forty percent.""Forty percent of a company that's about to double in value, if the whispers are correct." The man smiled. "I've been