MasukElenaI read the message again.Come home tonight. Alone. Or I burn everything you have left before morning."No," Damian said, before I even looked up. "Not happening.""I have to go.""You don't. Show this to the police.""And say what. My husband sent a text. That's nothing to them and you know it.""Elena.""If I don't go, he does something anyway. At least this way I know where he is."Sophia grabbed my arm. "That's the whole point. He wants you somewhere nobody else can see.""I know.""Then don't.""He said alone or he burns everything. Everything, Sophia. The board's still deciding. If he wipes what's left before they finish, tonight was for nothing."Damian paced the little waiting room, phone still in his hand."Fine," he said finally. "You go. We're close behind. I'll sit in the lot across the street. Sophia keeps the line open the whole time so we hear it.""He'll search me for a phone.""Not this." Damian pulled a small earpiece out of his jacket. "Was for something else
ElenaI read the message three times before I set the phone down.You have no idea what you just did."What does that mean?" Sophia said, reading it over my shoulder."Don't know."Damian took the phone from me, read it, set it back down without a word.Another notification appeared. An email this time.A press release. Not from us. Blackwood Group communications, sent six minutes ago.I opened it.My name is in the third line. Fabricated documents. A pattern connected to my medical condition. An affair. The word desperate, twice, in four paragraphs."He got ahead of it," I said. "Knew we were sending something before we sent it.""How," Sophia said."Doesn't matter how. He had this ready before we even finished building our case."Damian pulled up a news site on his laptop. Then another.Wife of Blackwood CEO Accused of Fabricating Evidence Amid Personal Crisis.I read the headline twice."This isn't him reacting," I said. "This is him already prepared for whatever we sent, whenever
ElenaRuth's porch light was still on when Damian's phone buzzed on the dashboard."The neighbor found her twenty minutes ago," he said. "Sitting on the steps. Nobody hurt her."I didn't say anything. Just closed my eyes and let the car hum under me for a second."He kept his word," Sophia said from the back seat."Cost him nothing to." I looked out the window instead of at her. "Don't call that decency."She went quiet. Kept turning her phone over in her lap, over and over, like the motion could fix something."What did he mean," I said finally. "The notebook. What else you've been keeping from me.""I can't answer that right now.""That's not an answer.""I know it isn't." She looked out her own window. "I'll tell you. Not tonight. Not with all of this sitting on top of us."I let it go. Didn't have the room to push, not with Marcus still moving pieces somewhere out there in the dark.Damian drove us to his place. Small kitchen, mismatched chairs, nothing like the house I'd spent fi
ElenaMarcus stood in the doorway. Hands in his pockets. Not moving."You should have listened to him," he said. "He told you to stop."Sophia's hand tightened on my arm."How did you find us," I said."Ruth's address has been in a file for thirty years, Elena. Did you think you were the only one who could read old paperwork?"I stood up slowly. My ankles hurt so badly."Where is she?," I said. "Where's Ruth?""Safe. For now." He stepped inside. Closed the door behind him. "That depends entirely on you.""Depends on what?.""The bag." He nodded at it, still on my shoulder. "Give it to me and this ends tonight. Nobody else gets hurt. Ruth goes home. You go home. We forget this ever happened.""You're lying.""Probably." He almost smiled. "But you don't have a lot of options right now, do you."Sophia stood up beside me. "You knew about the archive. You knew we'd be there tonight.""Of course I knew you were up to something." His mouth curved into the faintest hint of a smile. "Do you r
Elena"Elena." Damian was still on the line. His voice was sharper now.Couldn't. Not yet. Sophia's eyes on mine. Mine on hers. The same thought running through both our heads, unspoken.Me. Sophia. Damian. Ruth."Someone talked," I said."I know." A beat. "Leave the road. If they know your plans, they might know your route."Sophia's eyes kept looking through the mirror. Every set of headlights behind us made her flinch a little."Where?”"Somewhere with people. A dinner. Gas station. Anywhere." His voice had lost all the warmth from an hour ago. Just orders now. "Get rid of that car soon. If they tagged it once, they'll find it twice."We pulled into a pharmacy lot two exits down. The lights flickered above the empty parking spaces. A camera sat over the entrance, its red indicator blinking. Not safe. Just safer than where we were.I called Ruth the second I hung up. My hands were not cooperating.Voicemail.Called again.Same."Maybe she's asleep," Sophia said. Her own voice was no
ElenaThe person stepped into the light from my phone.His eyes were hard. He had on a coat that looked too expensive for someone standing in a dark hallway at midnight. He didn't look surprised. He didn't look like someone who had just caught us trying to escape. He just stood there, calm, like he had been waiting for us.I looked at him closely.Then it hit me.Whitlock.I'd never seen his face before, but somehow I knew it was him. The same way you feel a storm coming before the rain starts."Give me the bag," he said.Sophia's hand tightened around my arm. Her nails were hurting my skin, and I could feel it through my sleeve."No," I said. My voice sounded stronger than I actually felt.He moved fast. Too fast. I didn't know a man this old could move that fast. Before I even realized what was happening, his hands were already on my bag.I pulled back with all my strength. The strap burned into my shoulder."Let go of my bag," I said, but my voice wasn't as loud or as strong as I w







