Chapter 5

Damien didn't come home until nearly two in the morning.

Ellie heard the door, heard him moving quietly through the apartment like a man trying not to wake someone he assumed was asleep, and she lay still in the unfamiliar bed and let him think it had worked.

By the time she came out at seven, he was already at the kitchen counter, laptop open, a cup of black coffee steaming beside a second mug she hadn't asked for. Made, she realized, exactly the way she used to take it. Two sugars, splash of cream, stirred and left to cool for ninety seconds before drinking, because she hated it too hot.

She stared at the mug longer than she meant to. The steam rose in gentle curls, carrying the familiar scent of the brand he'd always bought, the one she'd mentioned in passing once, years ago, and he'd remembered. Of course he'd remembered. He remembered everything, and that was precisely what made him so dangerous.

"There's coffee," Damien said, not looking up.

"I can see that." She picked it up, took a cautious sip, and it was, infuriatingly, exactly right. The temperature was perfect. The cream was perfectly distributed. It tasted like mornings she'd tried very hard to forget. "You remembered how I take it."

"It's not difficult information to retain."

"It's been eight years."

"I have a good memory." He finally glanced up, something guarded in his expression, like he'd realized the mistake half a second after making it. "Don't read into it."

"I'm not reading into anything." She was absolutely reading into it. She was reading into the coffee, the photograph, the cleared closet, the tea tin that had no business being in his kitchen. "What did Marcus find last night? About the man in the gray coat."

Damien's jaw tightened. "Nothing conclusive yet. A dead-end shell company, a P.O. box that doesn't exist. Whoever he's working for went to considerable trouble to keep it that way."

"That's not comforting."

"It wasn't meant to be." He closed the laptop with more force than necessary. "I have a board meeting in two hours. I'd rather not walk in there rattled."

"And I'm supposed to just sit here and not worry?"

"I'm supposed to fix problems, Ellie. That's what I do." He stood, buttoning his cuffs with quick, practiced movements. "Let me fix this one before you spend the day imagining worse scenarios than the reality probably deserves."

"You don't know that it's not worse."

"No," he admitted. "I don't. But panicking accomplishes nothing, and I'd rather you not be alone with it all day."

It was, she realized, the closest thing to concern he'd offered since the courthouse steps. Not affection. Not warmth. But something that resembled care, wrapped in the language of efficiency and control. She didn't know whether to be grateful or furious.

He left twenty minutes later, and the apartment went quiet in a way that felt heavier than silence should. She wandered it slowly, coffee in hand, and found herself back in front of the crooked photograph in the hallway: the two of them on the beach, young enough to believe nothing would ever really hurt.

On impulse, she straightened it. Just slightly. Enough to notice, not enough to seem intentional.

In the kitchen, she opened cabinets she had no business opening and found, tucked behind a row of glasses, a small tin of the tea she used to drink in college. A brand that had gone out of production years ago, impossible to find unless someone had bought it in bulk before it disappeared and kept it, unopened, for reasons they never explained even to themselves.

She opened the tin. The tea inside was still sealed in its original packaging, unopened, waiting for someone who hadn't walked through that door in nearly a decade. She closed it carefully, placed it back exactly where she'd found it, and tried not to think about what it meant that Damien Sterling, who claimed to feel nothing, had been keeping her tea in his kitchen for eight years.

She was still holding the tin when her phone buzzed. Not the unknown number this time, her father.

Can we talk? Not about the marriage. About something else.

She called him back immediately.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong, exactly." Arthur's voice was careful, the same careful tone Reyes had used two nights ago. "I got a call this morning. From a reporter, asking questions about Damien's family. Specifically about his father's old business partner. The reporter kept asking about someone named Julian Vance."

"What business partner?"

"A man named Julian Vance. Worked with Damien's father for years before Damien was even running things. Then he just disappeared. Nobody talks about him anymore." Arthur paused. "The reporter seemed to think you'd know something about it. Given the marriage."

"I've never heard that name in my life."

"That's what I told him." Another pause, longer this time. "Ellie, be careful. Whatever's happening with this marriage, it's bigger than a board vote and a fraud case. I can feel it. There's something about the way that reporter talked. Like he knew things he shouldn't have known. Like he was waiting for me to confirm something he already suspected."

She hung up feeling colder than she had all morning, the tea tin still clutched in her hand like evidence of something she didn't yet understand. Julian Vance. A name she'd never heard, connected to a man she'd married three days ago, brought up by a reporter who knew exactly when to call her father.

By the time reporters found their address that afternoon, a dozen of them camped outside the building's entrance by two o'clock, more arriving by three, she'd almost stopped being surprised. Almost.

The doorman called up twice, apologetic, overwhelmed. Damien texted from the office: Don't leave the building. I'll have Marcus arrange a different exit for tomorrow.

She watched them from the window instead, the crowd growing, cameras trained upward at the building like they already knew exactly which floor to aim for. She could see their faces through the zoom of her phone camera, hungry and relentless, and she felt, for the first time since signing that contract, genuinely frightened. Not of the reporters themselves, but of what they might be looking for. Of what they might find.

Her phone buzzed one more time. The unknown number, silent for almost eighteen hours, finally speaking again.

Ask him about Julian Vance. Ask him what happened the night his father died. Ask him why nobody's seen the body in ten years.

She read it three times before the words fully landed, and by the time Damien walked through the door at seven that evening, exhausted and loosening his tie, she was already waiting for him at the counter, phone held out, voice steadier than she felt.

"Who is Julian Vance," she said, "and why does everyone except me seem to know his name?"

Damien stopped mid-stride. His hand froze on his tie, and for a long moment, he didn't move at all. Then he looked at her phone, at the message on the screen, and something in his face shifted. Not surprise. Recognition.

"Where did you get that name?" he asked quietly.

"From my father. From the anonymous texter. From everyone except you." She set the phone down between them. "Damien, who is he?"

Damien walked to the kitchen counter, poured himself a glass of water, and drank half of it before answering. When he finally spoke, his voice was lower than she'd ever heard it.

"Julian Vance was my father's business partner," he said. "That's all I can tell you right now."

"That's not all. That's barely anything."

"It's what I can give you tonight." He set the glass down and met her eyes. "The rest of it, Ellie, I need to be sure before I tell you. Because once I start explaining, there's no going back. And I don't know if you're ready for what comes next."

She stared at him, at the controlled stillness of his face, at the way his hands rested flat on the counter like he was holding himself together by sheer force of will. He wasn't lying to her. She could see that much. He was afraid.

"Then tell me when you're ready," she said quietly. "But don't keep me in the dark while someone out there is watching every move we make."

Damien nodded once, a small concession that cost him more than he'd ever admit. Then he turned back to his laptop, and the conversation was over.

But she saw it. The way his hands shook slightly as he typed. The way he couldn't quite meet her eyes again.

Julian Vance had done something to him. Something that still haunted him, ten years later. Ellie stared at him, the unanswered name echoing in her mind. Whatever this marriage had started as, she no longer believed her father's fraud was the whole story.