"Pass the wine, Ethan." Victor didn't look at me when he said it. He never did.I passed it.Sophia sat across from me, laughing at something her cousin said. She'd had a long week. I liked watching her like this, loose and unguarded, before the night inevitably tightened around her again.It always did. Usually around the second glass of wine, when her father decided he'd been quiet long enough."So, Ethan." Victor set his glass down with the kind of care that meant he wanted eyes on him. He got them. He always did. "Still at the same firm?""Still there.""Junior analyst." He said it slowly, like he was testing the word for flaws. "Three years now?""Three years.""Hm." He turned to his brother-in-law, some property developer named Griffin who laughed too loud at things that weren't funny. "You know, when Sophia first told us she was seeing someone in finance, I actually got excited. I thought, finally, someone who understands the business." He shook his head, smiling like the joke

Sophia found me at the kitchen counter at six in the morning, hunched over my laptop with coffee I hadn't touched. I hadn't slept. I'd closed the folder around four and told myself I'd rest for an hour, and instead I'd sat there running the name from the filing through every search engine I could think of, getting nothing, over and over, until the sky outside started turning gray."You didn't come to bed," she said. Not an accusation. Just tired."Lost track of time.""You lose track of time a lot lately." She crossed her arms. "It's been like this for months, Ethan. You come home late, you're up before I wake, and when I ask what you're working on you give me one word answers like I'm one of your coworkers.""It's just a busy quarter.""You said that in March. And May. It's September."I closed the laptop out of pure habit … nothing to hide, just a reflex I couldn't switch off around anyone anymore. She noticed. Of course she noticed. She noticed everything about me except the one th

I stepped into the kitchen before Victor could finish his sentence.Both of them turned. Sophia's face shifted from surprise to something closer to guilt. Victor recovered faster, sliding a smile on like it was part of his morning routine."Ethan. Didn't hear you come in.""Clearly." I looked at Sophia. "You ready?""We haven't eaten yet," Victor said, gesturing at the untouched plate of peaches."She can eat in the car."Victor's jaw tightened, the same way mine had in the hallway a minute ago. Whatever he'd been about to say, he wasn't going to say it in front of me. Not yet.Sophia stood, grabbed her bag without a word to her father, and followed me out. Neither of us spoke until we were in the car."What did you hear?," she asked."Enough."She didn't push, which surprised me. She stared out the window the rest of the drive back to our apartment, and I let her. I walked her to the door, told her I had a few errands to run before work, and left before she could ask what kind. It wa

Sophia asked me to come to the Grant Holdings anniversary dinner three days after the cemetery, and I said yes before I'd fully thought it through. I told myself it was a chance to watch the room, to see who stood near Victor and who kept their distance. Mostly I said yes because she asked with something close to hope in her voice, and I hadn't heard that tone from her in weeks.The ballroom was full when we arrived. I recognized a few faces from filings I'd studied for months. None of them recognized me … the advantage of being invisible for three years is that nobody looks twice at the son-in-law standing near the bar.Victor found us twenty minutes in, a drink already in his hand, his smile doing the work his eyes weren't."Ethan. Glad you could make it." He said it loud enough for the small cluster of executives near him to hear, which told me exactly what kind of conversation this was about to be."Wouldn't miss it.""No, I imagine not. Free bar." A ripple of laughter from the me

Sophia had gone to her parents' for the afternoon, some errand about seating charts for a charity gala her mother was chairing. I stayed home, telling myself I'd use the quiet to dig further into Brightline, though three hours in I still had nothing new … just the same dead ends circling back on themselves, the same law firm, the same silence where a paper trail should have been.I'd started to wonder if I was chasing a ghost that had learned how to cover its own tracks better than my father ever had. That thought didn't sit well, so I put the laptop aside and made coffee I didn't really want, just to give my hands something to do.My phone rang around four. Sophia's name on the screen. I answered, expecting her voice, expecting some question about dinner or a complaint about her mother's seating preferences.Nothing. Just background noise … the clink of glasses, a television murmuring somewhere, footsteps on hardwood. A pocket dial, probably. I almost hung up.Then I heard Victor's v