MasukSilence fell over the study.Shannon looked at her father, but Kennedy turned towards the windows. His shoulders remained rigid, his anger too old and too deep to surrender in a single night.Amelia drew Shannon into her arms again. “You are not going to lose everyone,” she murmured. “Not after we only just found one another.”Shannon clung to her, but her gaze dropped to the phone still held in her hand.Across the city, Sean stood in the private departure lounge of a small airfield while Ethan spoke to the pilot.Aria sat on one of the leather couches, staring at the passport in her lap. She had not cried again, but the redness around her eyes remained.Sean preferred the tears. Her silence reminded him too much of Shannon.“The aircraft can be ready within the hour,” Ethan said as he approached. “The security team will travel with her and remain at the residence until you tell them otherwise.”“I don’t need a security team,” Aria muttered.Sean looked at her. “You’re taking them.”
Ethan recognised her voice. “Ms. Miles.”“What did Edward say?”Another pause followed.“I only know what Sean reported during our call.”“Tell me.”Ethan hesitated.“Please,” Shannon whispered.“He asked Edward whether he authorized payments through Meridian Industrial Holdings.”“And?”“Edward said yes.”Shannon’s hand moved instinctively over her stomach.Kennedy’s face hardened. “What else?”“Mrs. Vale said everything they did was for Sean and Aria. Edward said they did what they had to do because Kennedy would have destroyed them if they hadn’t moved first.”The room became painfully still.Without Edward’s confusion, without the corporate crimes he believed they were discussing, the words sounded like an admission to everything.Kennedy’s voice dropped. “Did Sean ask about the hospital?”“Yes.”“And the recent payment?”“Yes.”“What did Edward say?”“Sean told him Shannon was carrying his child and that their grandchild nearly died because of money traced to Meridian.” Ethan’s p
The next day, the first alert arrived less than an hour later. after breakfast.Kennedy’s head of security returned to the study carrying a laptop and a folder thick enough to make the room fall silent before he spoke. “We received an anonymous message.”Kennedy’s expression hardened. “From whom?”“We don’t know. It was routed through several encrypted servers.”Sean had made the same observation only hours earlier.A burner phone, a hidden face, and evidence appearing exactly when someone wanted it found.Kennedy remembered Amelia’s warning but held out his hand. “What did they send?”“Not evidence, directions.” The investigator placed the laptop on the desk. “The message listed archive numbers, dissolved companies and storage locations connected to Meridian Industrial Holdings. Whoever sent it knew where the records were buried.”“And you trusted an anonymous message?”“No. We used the information only to locate the archives. Everything in this folder was retrieved from independent
The phone continued ringing.“Boss, are you there?”Sean closed his eyes.The call ended.His thumb hovered over Shannon’s name.A second later, it began ringing again.Pain tightened across his face.He rejected the call.Ethan went silent on the other end.Sean opened their messages and typed several different responses. I’m sorry. He erased it. I love you. He erased that too. The words felt too small for what stood between them.Finally, he sent: Aria is safe. You should rest.At Miles Estate, Shannon watched the message appear. No endearment, no question about the baby, no promise that he would return. Only six words delivered with the distance of a stranger.Tears slid down her cheeks.Amelia moved towards her, but Shannon stepped back. “He doesn’t want to speak to me.”“He’s hurt.”“So am I.”“I know.”“I called him twice.”“And he spent years becoming a man who never lets anyone see him wounded. Give him a moment.”Shannon stared at the message. “He used to call me babe just to
Sean went still.Aria felt it. She pulled away enough to see his face. “And Shannon?” she asked again.Sean looked down. Yesterday, he would have answered without hesitation. Shannon would marry him, their child would be born, Aria would remain beside them, and together they would build the family none of them had been given. Tonight, Shannon had watched him leave.“I’ll protect her first,” he said finally. “I’ll ask her to forgive me after.”Aria’s expression crumpled. “You don’t think she’ll still marry you.”“I don’t know what she thinks.”“She loves you.”“She loved me when she trusted me too.”“She still does.”Sean rested his head briefly against the seat. “Love didn’t stop her first marriage from destroying her. I won’t ask her to ignore evidence because she loves me.”“So you’re just going to lose her?”“No.” The answer came with sudden force. Sean looked at his sister. “I’m going to return everything. I’m going to prove who took Shannon and who paid that man yesterday.”“And
“Knows what?” Edward asked.“Enough.”Edward looked at her sharply.“She knew Kennedy’s companies,” Mrs. Vale continued. “She knew which contracts were his before they became ours. She knew he trusted you with the machinery agreements.”“She never saw the private accounts.”“You don’t know what she saw.”“I know what was kept from her.”“You thought she was dead. We both did. For twenty seven years, no one worried about what Amelia might remember because Amelia was not supposed to be alive.”Edward’s face darkened. “Lower your voice.”“There’s no one here except us. Our children have left because they think we helped steal that woman’s daughter, and now we discover the one person who might connect everything is alive.”“Amelia cannot prove I ordered Shannon’s disappearance because I didn’t.”“But she can prove everything that happened before it.” Mrs. Vale pointed towards Sean’s phone. “Once they prove the contracts, the bribes and the shell companies, why would anyone doubt the rest?
The guest room was at the end of the hall.Shannon paused at the doorway, her fingers resting lightly against the frame before she stepped in.It used to be a storage room now it was neat, cleaned and prepared.A bed, fresh sheets and a wardrobe that looked barely used.Shannon exhaled slowly and s
The hospital discharged them the next day.Shannon didn’t know whether that was fate or cruelty.She stood just outside the building, her fingers gripping the thin discharge papers in her hand as the sunlight hit her face. Too bright. Like the world hadn’t just ended for her.A few steps ahead Rowa
Shannon’s knees weakened beneath her. Three months of silence. Three months of absence. Three months where she wasn’t there. Her breathing grew uneven. Three months where someone else was. Her gaze slowly shifted back to Rowan. And this time she understood. Rowan watched her, something sharp
Rowan sat on the bed, his arm wrapped loosely around Evelyn.Evelyn stood close, too close, and Rowan leaned in, pressing a soft kiss to her cheek like it was the most natural thing in the world.Like he had done it a hundred times.Like it belonged there.“Stop!”The word tore out of Shannon befor







