02

The courthouse wedding took seven minutes.

Seven minutes to lose my name. Seven minutes to gain a target on my back.

The judge was a woman with grey hair and tired eyes. She asked if anyone objected. No one did. She asked if I took this man to be my husband. I said yes. My voice did not shake. I was proud of that.

Liam said yes too. He did not look at me when he said it. He looked at the door. Like he expected someone to burst through with a gun.

Maybe he did.

We signed the papers. The judge stamped them. She handed me a copy. The ink was still wet.

"Congratulations," she said. She did not sound like she meant it.

Neither did I.

The parking lot was empty when we walked out. The street was empty. The whole city was holding its breath.

Liam's car was black. The windows were tinted. The engine made no sound when it started.

"Seatbelt," he said.

I put it on.

He drove fast. Too fast for city streets. Red lights meant nothing to him. Stop signs meant less.

"You are going to get us killed," I said.

"Not tonight."

"How can you be sure?"

He glanced at me. His eyes were hard. "Because I have plans for tomorrow."

The penthouse was on the top floor. The elevator opened directly into a living room. Floor to ceiling windows. A view of the city that stole my breath.

A woman stood by the window. Grey dress. Grey hair. A face that gave away nothing.

"Vera," Liam said. "My assistant. She runs everything."

"Mrs. Sterling." Vera's voice was flat. "Your room is ready."

Mrs. Sterling.

The name felt like a chain.

"Third door on the left," Vera said. "There are clothes in the closet. Someone will bring breakfast at eight."

She walked away. Her heels clicked against the marble. The sound echoed.

Liam did not move. His hands were in his pockets. His shoulders were tight.

"The contract," he said. "There are rules."

"I figured."

"Rule one. You sleep in your room. I sleep in mine. No one knows we are not a real couple."

"Easy."

"Rule two. You attend events with me. You smile. You say the right things. You do not tell anyone this is a business arrangement."

"I can smile."

"Rule three." He paused. His jaw tightened. "You do not fall in love with me."

I laughed. It came out sharp. "Trust me. That will not be a problem."

He nodded. Like he had expected that answer. Like he had heard it before.

"One more thing," he said.

"What?"

He reached into his jacket. My body tensed. The diner was still fresh in my mind. The gunshot. The glass. The blood on his hand.

But he pulled out a photograph.

A woman. Young. Brown hair. A smile I knew better than my own.

My mother.

Standing next to a man I had never seen before.

Behind them was a house. Blue door. Wooden porch. A town that looked like nowhere and everywhere.

"Where did you get this?" My voice came out rough.

"The man next to your mother is Samuel Harper. He was her lawyer. He helped her disappear."

"Disappear from what?"

Liam looked at me. Really looked. Like he was deciding whether to tell me the truth or a version of it.

"Your mother worked for my grandfather," he said. "She saw something she should not have seen. She took documents. Proof. And she ran."

"Proof of what?"

"A crime. A murder. My father's."

The word landed like a punch.

"Your father killed someone?"

"Your mother's partner. The man who helped her hide the documents. My father found him first."

I grabbed the edge of the couch. The room was spinning. The city lights blurred outside the window.

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because my father knows who you are. He has been looking for you for twenty five years. He thinks you have the documents."

"I do not have anything."

"He does not believe that. And now that you are married to me, you are in his way."

I thought about the gunshot at the diner. The bullet in the wall. The man in the suit who had walked through the door.

"That was your father?"

"One of his men. A warning."

"For what?"

"For me. For marrying you. For bringing you into the family."

I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. I wanted to go back to the diner and wipe tables and pretend none of this had ever happened.

But I could not.

Because my mother had been running from these people her whole life. And now I was married to one of them.

"Thirty days," I said. "That was the deal."

"The deal changed the moment someone shot at you."

"No. The deal is the deal. Thirty days. Then I walk away with my house and never see you again."

Liam stepped closer. Close enough that I could smell his cologne. Wood and smoke and something broken underneath.

"If you walk away in thirty days, my father will find you. He will hurt you. He will do whatever it takes to get those documents."

"Then I will find the documents first."

"How?"

I looked at the photograph in my hand. My mother. The blue door. The man who had helped her disappear.

"Samuel Harper," I said. "He is still alive?"

"Barely. Dementia. He does not remember most days."

"But he remembers the documents?"

"He remembers your mother. And he remembers a key. A key to a safety deposit box where the documents are hidden."

"Where is the key?"

Liam's jaw tightened. "Your mother hid it. Somewhere only you would think to look."

My mother's house. The letters. The storage unit. The key was not there. I had searched everything.

But I had not searched Samuel Harper.

"Take me to him," I said.

"Now?"

"Now. Or the deal is off. I walk out that door and I never come back."

Liam stared at me. The calculation was back in his eyes. Weighing. Measuring. Deciding.

"One condition," he said.

"Name it."

"You stay close to me. You do not go anywhere alone. You do not talk to anyone without me in the room."

"You are protecting me or watching me?"

"Both."

I should have said no. I should have walked away. But my mother's face was in that photograph. Her smile. Her secrets. Her lies.

I needed to know why.

"Fine," I said. "Take me to Samuel Harper."

Liam grabbed his keys.

And for the first time since I said yes to a stranger in a diner, I was not just surviving.

I was fighting back.