Chapter Twelve

I open the door before my mother can, because whatever happens in the next sixty seconds, I need it to happen on my terms and not hers.

Four men, exactly as composed up close as they looked through the glass, the one in front holding a phone with what I assume is Marcus Ashford's authority glowing somewhere on the screen even though I can't see it. He smiles at me the way people smile when they've been trained to smile regardless of what's actually happening.

"Ms. Sterling. I apologize for the intrusion." His eyes go past me, into the hall, cataloguing — my mother, Celeste frozen on the stairs, Tobias somewhere behind me I can feel more than see. "We understand an Ashford Biotech employee entered this residence in the last several minutes. We're required to bring him in for an internal matter."

"There's no employee here," I say, calm, pleasant, my father's own boardroom voice coming out of my mouth without my quite deciding to use it. "You're welcome to check with my fiancé if you'd like to confirm. Julian and I speak several times a day."

It's a bluff built entirely on the hope that invoking Julian's name buys me thirty seconds these men aren't authorized to argue through, and for one suspended breath, I think it might actually work — the lead man's composure flickers, just slightly, the specific hesitation of someone recalculating whether the fiancée of the boss's son outranks whatever instructions he walked in with.

Then Tobias, behind me, makes the mistake of running.

I hear his footsteps before I see him — a scramble down the hall toward the kitchen, toward the back door, toward some idea of freedom that was never going to survive contact with four trained men standing at the front entrance — and the composure on the lead man's face vanishes entirely, replaced by something flat and professional and much, much faster than I have time to stop.

"Go," he says to the two behind him, and they're already moving, already past me, already through my own front hall like I'm furniture instead of a person who just told them there was no one here.

"Get out of my house," I say, sharper now, stepping into the doorway to block the last two men from following, but the lead one just looks at me with something almost like sympathy.

"Ms. Sterling. I'd strongly recommend you don't put yourself in the middle of this."

I hear Tobias make it as far as the kitchen before the back door rattles, locked, seconds wasted fumbling with a bolt he doesn't know I had my father install two years ago after a break-in scare, and by the time he gets it open, they're already on him.

The sound that follows isn't loud. That's the worst part of it — no shouting, no struggle drawn out long enough to feel like a fight, just a short scuffle of shoes on tile and one sharp, cut-off cry that ends far too fast, and then two men are walking back through my kitchen with Tobias between them, arm twisted up behind his back, face white, eyes finding mine for one desperate half-second as they haul him past.

"Ivy," he says, my name instead of Celeste's this time, like I'm the last person in this house who might actually help him. "Ivy, please, tell them I didn't take anything, tell them—"

"Let him go," I say, stepping forward, and the lead man's hand comes up, not touching me, just present, a boundary I understand instantly not to cross.

"This is a company matter, Ms. Sterling. Not a family one."

"He's a person, not a company matter."

"He's an employee under investigation for unauthorized data access that may have compromised confidential trial information during an active public health situation." The man's voice stays perfectly level, perfectly reasonable, which somehow makes it worse than if he'd shouted. "I understand this is distressing. I'd ask you to let us do our job."

Behind me, my mother is saying something to Celeste, low and furious, and Celeste isn't answering, just standing frozen on the stairs with both hands pressed over her mouth, watching the man she's apparently loved for two years get dragged out of our front hall in front of our whole family without doing a single thing to stop it.

I could call for her to help. I could turn around right now and force her to choose, in front of our mother, in front of everyone, whether the man who just called out my name instead of hers means anything to her at all.

I don't. I don't know why I don't, except that some part of me, cold and calculating in a way I don't entirely recognize as my own voice yet, understands that whatever happens to Tobias in the next hour is happening whether I fight it or not, and the only thing I actually control right now is what these men believe I know.

"I want his name," I say instead, stepping back, letting them pass. "Whoever's in charge of this investigation. I want a name, because my fiancé's family is about to hear from mine about how his father's security team treated a guest in my home."

The lead man studies me for a moment, something recalculating behind his eyes again, and then he nods, short and professional, and hands me a card before following the others out to the SUVs idling at the curb.

Through the front window, I watch them load Tobias into the back seat, watch the door close, watch the whole convoy pull away from the curb and disappear down the street in under a minute, like none of it happened at all.

The house is silent behind me.

I turn around to find Celeste still frozen on the stairs, tears finally running down her face, and my mother standing rigid beside her with an expression I've never once seen her wear in seventeen years — not anger, not even shock anymore, just a slow, dawning horror at exactly how much she doesn't know about the daughter she raised.

"Ivy." Celeste's voice comes out small, broken, nothing like the bright careless voice that brought me coffee three mornings ago. "They're going to make him disappear. You know that, don't you? People like that don't take people in for questioning. They take them somewhere and they make sure the questions never get asked again."

I look down at the business card in my hand, at a name and a number that mean nothing to me yet, and I think about a source who protected Damian for eight months, who texted him a warning last night, who called out my name instead of my stepsister's in the last clear second before he disappeared into the back of a car.

"Then we'd better find him before they do," I say, "whatever it takes."