Chapter 16

 Ask Yourself Why

The message sits on my screen, glowing accusingly, and for a long moment nobody in the room says a single word.

"That's not possible." Elena is the first to break the silence, her voice trembling. "Eleanor loved Amara. She fought for this marriage because she believed in it, not because she was orchestrating something monstrous."

"Or she knew something none of us did, and pushed for it anyway." Noah's voice is barely audible, his hands braced against the table like he needs it to keep himself upright. "God, if this is true, what does that make Lila? What does that make everything?"

"Stop." My father's voice cuts through the spiraling panic in the room, sharp and commanding despite everything. "We are not going to sit here and destroy ourselves over an anonymous message sent by someone with an obvious motive to hurt this family. Whoever is sending these texts wants exactly this reaction. Panic. Doubt. Division."

"But what if it's true." Noah's eyes lift to meet mine, and the horror in them mirrors exactly what I feel churning in my own stomach. "Richard, what if your instincts about Eleanor and your wife are correct? What if she really did know, and pushed us together anyway?"

"Then we deal with that reality when we have actual proof of it," my father says firmly, "and not one second before. I refuse to let some coward hiding behind an unknown number dictate how this family processes information that may not even be true."

Julian has already pulled out his own phone, typing rapidly. "I can have a forensics contact trace the number this message came from. It won't be instant, burner phones and spoofed numbers make it complicated, but it's not impossible."

"Do it." Noah's voice regains some of its usual authority, though his hands are still visibly unsteady. "And pull every medical record connected to my mother's private physician from that time period. If there's any truth to this, there will be a paper trail somewhere."

"I'll have my own team cross reference anything related to your mother," my father adds. "If she really did know something and arranged this marriage deliberately, there may be documentation, letters, something that explains her reasoning."

I stand frozen in the middle of the room, phone still clutched tight in my hand, watching the two men who have spent the better part of this conversation being adversaries suddenly aligning toward a single, terrifying goal.

"I need air." The words come out before I fully register wanting to say them, and before anyone can stop me, I turn and push through the conference room door, walking fast down the hallway until I reach a quiet alcove near the windows, away from the noise, away from the spinning uncertainty threatening to swallow me whole.

I press my forehead against the cool glass, staring down at the city sprawled far below, and try to steady my breathing.

Footsteps approach a moment later, softer than I expect, and I turn to find Noah standing several feet away, keeping a careful, deliberate distance.

"I'm not here to push you into anything." His voice is quiet, gentler than I've heard it in years. "I just didn't want you standing alone right now."

"That's rich, coming from you." The words come out sharper than I intend, but I don't take them back. "You've let me stand alone through worse than this, Noah."

He doesn't argue. He just nods, accepting it, and leans against the wall a few feet from me, staring out at the same skyline.

"For what it's worth," he says after a long moment, "whatever this test says, it doesn't change what I feel when I look at you."

"And what exactly do you feel when you look at me, Noah." My voice cracks despite myself. "Because for four years, it looked a lot like nothing at all."

His jaw tightens, and when he finally speaks, his voice is rougher than I've ever heard it. "Regret. That's what I feel, every single time I look at you now. Regret that I spent four years too afraid of my own feelings to admit I fell in love with you the night Lila was born, when I held her for the first time and looked up and saw you crying happy tears, and something in my chest cracked wide open, and it terrified me so badly I buried it under work and distance and every excuse I could find."

I stare at him, stunned into silence, the confession landing somewhere I'm not prepared for it to land.

"You don't get to say that to me." My voice trembles. "Not now, not after everything, not while we're standing here waiting to find out if we might actually be related."

"I know." His eyes close briefly, pained. "I know the timing is horrific. I just needed you to know it wasn't nothing, Amara. It was never nothing. I was just a coward."

Before I can respond, Julian's voice calls urgently from down the hallway, cutting through the moment entirely.

"Amara! Noah! You both need to see this. My contact just came back with something."

We hurry back into the conference room where Julian stands with his laptop open, his expression a strange mixture of relief and fresh alarm.

"I traced the message." He turns the screen toward us. "It didn't come from a random troll or a burner phone purchased with cash. It came from a registered device, one that required an account login to send through this particular messaging platform."

"Whose account." My father's voice is tight.

Julian's eyes lift to meet mine, grim and certain. "It's registered to Marcus Delray. The actor Isabella paid to accuse you at the gala."

The room goes utterly still.

"He's still working for her." Noah's voice hardens instantly. "Even after everything, even after the board exposed the payment trail, he's still sending messages on her behalf."

"Or." Julian's expression shifts, something calculating moving behind his eyes. "He's not working for her at all anymore. Maybe he's trying to get ahead of something before it comes out on its own, covering himself by planting doubt now so it looks less damning later. Which means there might be actual truth buried somewhere in what he's telling you, truth he knows Isabella has been sitting on."

My phone buzzes one final time, and when I look down, the last message from the unknown number sends ice through every vein in my body.

Unknown:Ask Isabella how she really knows Eleanor Frost. It goes back further than any of you think. Further than Amara's birth. Further than this marriage. She's been playing this game since before you were all born.