CHAPTER 16

By the next morning, Meridian Holdings had become the first thing I thought about when I opened my eyes. It was also the last thing I wanted to think about.

I sat at the kitchen island with my laptop open while Adrian stood across from me, speaking quietly with his investigator on the phone. I watched his expression change — first impatient, then confused, and finally something close to concern settled over his face. He ended the call.

"Well?" I asked. He didn't answer immediately, and that alone made my stomach tighten. "What did he find?"

"Nothing," he said. I stared at him. "Nothing?" "Almost nothing." Adrian pulled out the chair beside me and sat down. "My investigator spent the entire night tracing Meridian Holdings. Registration records, bank filings, corporate databases, property records — everything."

"And?"

"Meridian exists," he said. I waited. "But there's no one behind it." A cold shiver moved through me. "What does that mean?" "It means the company is registered. It has a legal address. It has banking information. It has tax records." "That sounds like a real company." "It should." His eyes met mine. "But every trail ends in the same place." "Where?" "A dead end."

I frowned. "How can a company receive and send money if nobody actually owns it?" "That's exactly what we're trying to figure out."

Adrian opened his laptop and turned it toward me. A list of documents filled the screen — corporate registration, banking records, tax filings, director information. Everything looked legitimate at first glance, but the names were either missing, buried behind layers of holding companies, or connected to entities that no longer existed.

"It was designed this way," Adrian said. My chest tightened. "You mean someone deliberately made it impossible to trace?" "Yes."

I looked back at Liam's name on the transfer record. "So someone paid Liam through a company that was built to disappear." Adrian didn't correct me. That frightened me more than anything. "Do you think Liam knew?" "I don't know." "But he took the money." "Yes." "And he never told me." "No."

I closed my eyes briefly. The betrayal wasn't new. Liam had already cheated on me, stolen my work, humiliated me, and tried to destroy my reputation. But this felt different, because it meant there might have been a part of his life I'd never even known existed.

Adrian reached across the table. "Chloe." I opened my eyes. "Don't blame yourself for not seeing this." "I don't." It came out too quickly, and he knew I was lying. "You trusted him." "I shouldn't have." "You trusted the man you thought he was." I looked down at the screen. "I don't even know who that man was anymore."

For a moment, neither of us spoke. Then my phone rang. I glanced at the screen and my breath caught — Grace.

I hadn't spoken to my aunt in months, not properly anyway. She rarely called me, and when she did, it was usually about something ordinary — family matters, paperwork, checking in on me. But seeing her name now made something uneasy settle in my chest. I answered.

"Hello?" There was silence. "Aunt Grace?" Her breathing was unsteady. "Chloe?" "Yes. What's wrong?" Another pause, then she asked, "Where are you?" I frowned. "I'm with Adrian." The silence that followed was different. Heavier. "Why?" "Grace, what's happening?"

Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Have you been looking into something?" I exchanged a glance with Adrian. "What do you mean?" "Chloe, listen to me carefully." My fingers tightened around the phone. "What?" "If you see the name Meridian again…" She stopped. I felt my heartbeat quicken. "Again?" "Stay away from it."

I froze. Adrian's eyes immediately locked onto mine. "What did you say?" "Stay away from anything called Meridian." The words hit me harder than they should have. I sat straighter. "How do you know about Meridian?" Grace didn't answer. "Aunt Grace, how do you know that name?" "Don't ask questions about it." "Why?" "Because you don't know what you're touching."

My mouth went dry. I looked at Adrian; he was already standing. "Grace, someone paid Liam through Meridian Holdings months before—" "Stop." Her voice cracked. I went silent. She sounded genuinely frightened. Not angry. Not confused. Frightened. "Chloe," she whispered, "please." "Please what?" "Let it go." Then the line went dead.

I stared at my phone. Adrian stepped closer. "What did she say?" I couldn't answer, not immediately, because one thought had already taken root in my mind. My aunt hadn't asked what Meridian was. She hadn't asked why I was looking into it. She had recognized the name. And she had been afraid of it.

I slowly looked up at Adrian. "She knows." His expression hardened. "Knows what?" I swallowed. "I don't know."

My phone was still in my hand. Grace had called me out of nowhere. She had known exactly what Meridian was, and whatever that company had to do with Liam, she was desperate for me to stay away. For the first time, I wondered if the money we'd found wasn't the beginning of the mystery. Maybe it was the first warning. And my aunt had just given me one.

*"Stay away from anything called Meridian."*

I could still hear her voice. And suddenly, I was more afraid of what Grace knew than what Liam had done.