Chapter 4 Dominic's Pov

The morning sun streams through my office window, cutting across the mahogany desk where I've spent the last four hours buried in acquisition papers. Numbers blur before my eyes. Spreadsheets merge into meaningless columns. I've read the same paragraph three times and still couldn't tell you what it says.

My mind hasn't been right for days. Weeks. Months, if I'm honest. Not since... not since when? Since she left? Since I woke up that morning and found her gone? Since I spent months calling a number that no longer worked, driving past places she used to frequent, making a fool of myself asking anyone who might know where she went?

Seven years. Seven years, and still, she lives in my head like a tenant who refuses to pay rent.

The knock on my door makes me jump. Rita, my secretary, pokes her head in, her expression unreadable. She's worked for me long enough that I can usually read her like a book, but today, something's different. Something's off.

"Mr. Watson?" She steps inside, clutching a piece of paper like it might bite her. "I have some information you asked me to keep an eye out for. A while back. Years back, actually."

I set down my pen. My heart does something strange, a flutter I refuse to acknowledge. "What information?"

She hesitates. Rita never hesitates. "It's about Elena Janice. She's back in Los Angeles."

The words don't compute at first. They hang in the air between us, foreign syllables that refuse to form meaning. Elena… Janice… Back… Los Angeles?! 

I'm on my feet before I realize I've moved. "What?"

Rita holds out the paper. I don't take it. Can't. My hands won't cooperate.

"She will be flying in tomorrow, the flight is scheduled to land at five in the evening.”

Rita continues, her voice carefully neutral. 

I sink back into my chair. The leather creaks beneath me.

"Thank you, Rita." My voice comes out rough. "That'll be all."

She nods and slips out, closing the door softly behind her.

I stare at the wall for I don't know how long. Minutes. Hours. Time loses meaning when your entire world upends itself in the space of a single sentence.

She's back. After seven years, she's back.

The anger comes first– hot and familiar. How dare she? How dare she disappear without a word, without explanation, without even a goodbye? How dare she cut off everyone who loved her, including her own brother, and then waltz back into this city like nothing happened?

But beneath the anger, something else stirs. Something I've tried to kill a thousand times over the past decade.

Relief. God help me, relief.

She's alive. She's okay. She's here.

By evening, I'm at a bar I don't remember walking into, nursing a whiskey I don't remember ordering. The place is dim, quiet, the kind of establishment where people come to disappear for a few hours. Perfect for a man who doesn't know what to do with the news he's carrying.

The door opens, and Marcus walks in.

He looks tired, more tired than I've seen him in years. His usual easy smile is absent, replaced by a drawn expression that speaks of sleepless nights and heavy thoughts. He slides onto the stool beside me and signals the bartender for the usual.

"You look like hell," I say.

"Thanks. You always knew how to make a guy feel special." He takes a long pull from his beer, then sets it down heavily. "Rita called me."

Of course she did. Rita has been reporting all of the major news to Marcus, and I can see that some loyalties die hard.

"I figured."

"She's going to be back." Marcus stares at the bottles lining the wall behind the bar. "My sister… She's actually going to be back. In LA. Same time, tomorrow."

"I know."

He turns to look at me then, and I see something flicker in his eyes, hope or fear, I wasn't sure. 

Probably both. 

“We should go see her, tomorrow. Maube at the airport? I don't care what time it is, I haven't seen my sister in seven years, Dominic. Seven years. She's been gone for seven years and now she's going to be twenty minutes away and I—"

"No."

The word comes out sharper than I intend. Marcus flinches.

"No?" His voice rises. "What do you mean, no? She's my sister. My only sibling. She disappeared off the face of the planet and now she's back and you're telling me no?"

I drain my whiskey in one swallow. The burn doesn't register. "I'm not telling you not to see her. I'm telling you I'm not ready."

Marcus stares at me for a long moment. Then his expression softens, and that's somehow worse. Pity from Marcus, from the man whose sister broke my heart without ever knowing it, is more than I can stomach.

"Dominic—”

"Don't." I hold up a hand. "Just... don't."

"Go see her if you want, ask your questions and get your answers. But I can't.”