Chapter 6

PRICE OF INFORMATION

Riona’s POV

Kieran was looking at my photograph as if it had just spoken. Not at the hospital bracelet still circling my wrist. Not at the divorce papers I had folded so many times that the crease was beginning to split.

Not at the woman who had lost her baby, her marriage, and almost everything she had once believed about herself in the space of a few hours.

“What is that company?” I asked again.

His gaze lifted from the image. “I told you. It’s connected to something I’ve been investigating.”

“That isn’t an answer.”

“No,” he agreed. “It isn’t.”

His calm admission irritated me more than a lie might have. Caelan used to speak that way when he wanted a conversation to end without admitting he had refused to answer.

He would look at me with that composed, superior expression and make me feel unreasonable for asking questions about my own life.

“Then tell me what you know,” I said.

Kieran leaned back in his chair. He looked entirely at ease, but there was nothing relaxed about his eyes. They were sharp, measuring me as though every answer I gave might be worth something.

“Where did you get the photograph?”

“From the evidence file.”

“You’ve said that. I’m asking how it got there.”

“I don’t know. It was among the documents they showed me. I took a picture before the investigator left the room.”

“What do you know about the company?”

“Only what I can see. A name, a transaction code, and a reference to an old subsidiary. I didn’t recognize it until you reacted.”

“Did Caelan ever discuss its business dealings with you?”

“I worked in property acquisitions and development for Wrenhold. I reviewed transactions. I asked questions when the numbers didn’t make sense.” My mouth felt dry. “Recently, I questioned payments connected to a waterfront project. Caelan told me I was overthinking it.”

“And you accepted that?”

“I was his wife.” The words came out harsher than I intended. “I thought I could trust him.”

For the first time, something in Kieran’s expression shifted. No pity. I would have hated pity. It was closer to recognition, as if he understood the particular humiliation of realizing that trust had been used to keep you quiet.

“But you don’t trust me,” he said.

“I met you less than an hour ago. You’ve asked me questions about a company you refuse to name properly, and you’re looking at my evidence like it’s more important than the fact that someone may still be following me. Why would I trust you?”

He considered that without appearing offended. “You shouldn’t.”

“What does the company have to do with you?” I asked.

“It appeared in an investigation I started years ago. I followed transactions through several businesses, and this one surfaced. Then the records stopped leading anywhere.”

“Why were you investigating it?”

“That part isn’t yours to know yet.”

My fingers tightened around the edge of the folder. “Then perhaps nothing I know is yours to know either.”

A faint, unreadable smile touched his mouth. “Fair.”

“Someone connected to that company hurt you?” I asked.

His expression closed. “Someone connected to that matter destroyed my family. That is all I’m prepared to say.”

I looked at the photograph again. The tiny letters blurred for a second, and I blinked until they sharpened. I couldn’t afford to lose focus.

Not when every person who had held power over my life had used my confusion against me.

“Do you think I poisoned Melania?” I asked.

Kieran’s eyes returned to mine. “I haven’t seen enough evidence to believe anything about your innocence or your guilt.”

The words landed harder than they should have. I had cried enough tonight, and none of it had changed anything.

I pulled the folder closer to my chest.

“That’s a very polished way of saying you don’t believe me.”

“It’s a way of saying I don’t make decisions without facts.”

“Then you and my ex-husband have something in common.”

“I’m not asking you to believe me,” I said. “I’m not going to beg another stranger to decide whether I look innocent enough to deserve help.”

“Good. I wouldn’t ask you to.”

“Then what do you want?”

“The truth about how that photograph entered the evidence file. And whatever you remember about the documents surrounding it.”

“In exchange for what?”

“I’ll have my people examine whether the photograph has any connection to the accusation against you.”

“Will they clear my name?”

“No promises.”

“Will you give the information to the police?”

“If it points to evidence of a crime, I’ll decide what to do when I know what we’re dealing with.”

I could walk away. I could take my suitcase, board a flight, and disappear into a city where nobody knew the name Wren or the woman accused of poisoning her husband’s first love.

But running has not protected me. I had left Aurelia because staying felt unbearable, and someone had followed me all the way to the airport.

My resources were limited. My reputation had been dragged through every headline. I had no job waiting for me, no home I could return to, and no husband who would suddenly remember the woman he had married.

The baby I had carried was gone, and there was no bargain I could make with the world to bring that child back.

I was tired of waiting for Caelan to look at the evidence. Tired of waiting for someone to notice that the story told about me did not fit. If I had been framed, then whoever had done it was counting on me being too broken to ask why.

I lifted my head. “I’ll tell you what I remember. But you don’t get to keep the photograph, and you don’t get to decide what I’m allowed to know about my own case.”

Kieran’s gaze held mine for a long moment. “Agreed.”

“And if your people find something, I see it too.”

“That depends on what they find.”

“Then we don’t have a deal.”

His eyes narrowed slightly, not with anger but with renewed interest. “You negotiate hard for someone who claims to have nothing left.”

“I have nothing left to lose. That isn’t the same as having nothing left.”

I opened the folder and drew out the photograph. The image trembled faintly in my hand, whether from exhaustion or the memory of that room, I couldn’t tell.

I turned it toward him, ready to explain where the page had been placed and what the investigator had said when he passed it across the table.

Then I noticed the detail near the bottom edge.

I had been so focused on the transaction code and the impossible timestamp that I had barely registered the small header printed above the document reference.

It wasn’t a random corporate page accidentally caught among the papers. It had been listed as an exhibit in the case against me.

My stomach tightened.

I pointed to the line, then looked directly at Kieran.

“If this company has nothing to do with Melania’s poisoning, why was its name on a document inside the evidence file against me?”