Chapter 15: MARCUS VANCE

Lyra, pov

I met Ethan's brother properly for the first time at a small, informal dinner at the estate, a deliberate departure from the carefully staged public performances that had defined every other moment of my new marriage, and one that left me, if I was honest, unexpectedly nervous.

Marcus Vance looked like an easier version of his brother the same dark hair, the same height, but where Ethan's face had settled into the guarded stillness of a man who'd learned young to hide what he was feeling, Marcus's expression moved constantly, openly, warmth and mischief flickering across it in a way that made him instantly, disarmingly likeable.

"So you're the ghost," he said, by way of greeting, grinning as he pulled out a chair across from me at the estate's smaller, more intimate dining room. "I have to say, you're better looking than the tabloids gave you credit for. They usually don't manage to make dead people look this good."

"Marcus," Ethan said, in a tone that carried a warning underneath the exasperation.

"What? I'm being complimentary." Marcus turned back to me, unbothered. "Seriously though, welcome to the family. Fair warning, my brother's terrible at expressing emotions unless they're aimed at destroying a rival company, so if you need someone to translate what he actually means when he goes quiet and broody, I'm your guy."

Despite myself, despite the tension of the past week, I laughed a real laugh, surprised out of me by the easy, unguarded warmth of a man who clearly adored his brother even while teasing him mercilessly.

"I'll keep that in mind," I said.

Dinner passed more comfortably than I expected, Marcus filling the silences that Ethan and I both tended toward with easy stories childhood mischief, a disastrous attempt at learning to sail that had nearly capsized a boat off the coast when they were teenagers, the particular horror of watching his older brother attempt small talk at his first major shareholders' meeting. I watched Ethan during these stories, noticing the way his careful composure softened around his brother, the way something younger and less guarded surfaced in his expression when Marcus teased him about memories only the two of them shared.

It was near the end of dinner, when Ethan excused himself briefly to take a call from his security team an update, I assumed, on the investigation into whoever had photographed me at the engagement party that Marcus leaned forward, his easy grin fading into something more serious.

"Can I tell you something," he said, "that my brother would probably kill me for saying?"

My pulse quickened, an instinct I couldn't quite explain. "That depends on what it is."

"He's different with you," Marcus said. "I don't mean the public performance, the whole devoted husband act for the cameras. I mean when he doesn't know anyone's watching. I haven't seen him like this since " He stopped himself, something careful crossing his face, like he'd caught himself on the edge of saying too much.

"Since what?" I pressed, unable to help myself.

Marcus glanced toward the door Ethan had disappeared through, lowering his voice. "There was a girl," he said, "years ago, before either of us had any money, before Vance Global Holdings existed as anything more than an idea Ethan scribbled in the back of a notebook. Something happened to him, back in school, something he's never fully talked about even to me. But I remember, right after it happened, the way he changed. The way he got quieter, more focused, almost obsessive about becoming powerful enough that nobody could ever hurt him  or the people he cared about again."

Something cold and unplaceable moved through my chest, the same disorienting familiarity I'd felt looking at the scar near Ethan's temple, the same unease I'd felt when the ring fit my finger with an accuracy that should have been impossible for a guess.

"What happened to him?" I asked quietly.

Marcus opened his mouth to answer, and I watched something shift in his expression, hesitation, loyalty, the particular calculation of a younger brother deciding how much of someone else's private history was his to share.

"That's not really my story to tell," he said finally, gentler than his earlier teasing. "But I'll say this. Whatever he told you about why he agreed to this marriage, whatever business logic he gave you about destroying Julian Reyes I don't think that's the real reason. I think my brother's been waiting for something, or someone, for a very long time. And I think, whether you realise it yet or not, you might be it."

The door opened before I could respond, Ethan striding back in, his expression tight with barely contained tension.

"We need to talk," he said, his eyes finding mine, all traces of the earlier warmth of the evening replaced by something urgent and controlled. "Security just finished reviewing the footage from the engagement party. They identified the uniform the intruder was wearing."

"And?" I asked, my pulse spiking.

"It was reported stolen three weeks ago," Ethan said. "From a dry-cleaning service that handles laundry for exactly two households in this city. Mine." He paused, and something in his face made my stomach drop before he even finished the sentence. "And the Calloway estate."

The room went silent, the easy warmth of the dinner evaporating instantly into something colder, sharper. I looked between Ethan's grim expression and Marcus's suddenly serious face, and felt the full weight of what that single detail meant settle over me like ice water.

Whoever had been photographing me from the shadows, whoever had sent those three chilling words to my phone the moment Julian confessed his part in Camille's plan, wasn't some anonymous outside threat.

They had access to my family's household.

"It's her," I whispered, the words coming out before I could stop them, thinking of Margaret's cold, possessive voice on the phone, thinking of the trust fund Diane couldn't crack open, thinking of a woman who had spent twenty-seven years perfecting the art of controlling everything and everyone around her without ever once raising her voice. "It's Margaret. She's the one watching me."

Ethan's jaw tightened, and he crossed the room to stand beside my chair, his hand settling protectively on my shoulder. "We don't know that for certain yet."

"I do," I said, my voice shaking despite my best efforts to steady it. "I felt it the moment she called me. She knows something, Ethan. She's known something this whole time, and now she's watching to see exactly how much I've figured out."

My phone buzzed on the table between us, the sound obscenely ordinary against the sudden, suffocating tension in the room. I looked down at the screen, already dreading what I'd find, and felt the last of my composure shatter completely.

A single photograph, unsigned, sent from the same unknown number as before.

It was a picture of me, taken from a distance, standing in the doorway of Ethan's estate the very night we'd arrived the same estate Marcus had just confirmed neither of us had told anyone outside our closest circle about.

Beneath the photograph, three new words glowed on the screen, colder and more devastating than anything that had come before.

*Nowhere is safe.*