Chapter Four

The police came for Nathaniel at dawn.

I woke to the sound of pounding on the front door and the deep, unfamiliar voices of men who were not here to be polite. By the time I pulled on a robe and made it downstairs, two officers were already standing in the foyer, and Nathaniel was halfway down the stairs with his shirt unbuttoned and his face still heavy with sleep.

Elora stood at the top of the staircase, wrapped in a silk robe, watching everything with wide, innocent eyes.

"Mr. Vance," one of the officers said, holding out a folded document, "you've been served with an emergency restraining order filed by your wife, Elena Vance."

My blood stopped moving.

Nathaniel's head turned toward me so fast I heard his neck crack. His eyes were ice, sharp and cold, and the look he gave me was not confusion or hurt; it was pure, burning hatred. "You did this?"

"I didn't," I said, and my voice came out smaller than I wanted. "I never filed anything."

But the officer was already handing him the papers, and Nathaniel was reading them with a face that grew darker with every line. Elora came down the stairs slowly, her bare feet silent on the marble, and when she reached the bottom she placed a hand on Nathaniel's arm like she was holding him back from doing something violent.

"Maybe big sister finally snapped," she said softly, and her voice was sweet but her eyes were not.

I looked at her and for a second I saw something flicker across her face. Not a look of surprise or she was concerned. It was something else that looked like satisfaction.

She knew something or she had done something.

But I couldn't prove it.

The officers left after Nathaniel signed an acknowledgment of service. He didn't speak to me. He didn't even look at me again. He just walked upstairs, and Elora followed him, and I stood alone in the foyer with my hands shaking and my mind racing.

I called Marcus immediately.

"Did you file a restraining order on my behalf?" I asked, not even saying hello.

There was a pause. "No," he said. "But someone did. I checked the filing this morning. The signature is yours but it's not your handwriting. Someone forged it."

"Who?"

"I don't know yet. But Elena, listen to me. Whoever did this wants to isolate you from Nathaniel. They want him to hate you. And it's working."

I thought about the mysterious texter. The one who had been watching me, who sent the photo of Marcus and said they were protecting me.

"Did you do this?" I typed to the unknown number.

The reply came a minute later. "I'm protecting you. He needs to know you're not weak. You deserve better than a man who never chose you."

My stomach turned. This person, whoever they were, had crossed a line. They had made me look like a liar, and had made Nathaniel my enemy.

I typed back: "Stay away from me."

No reply.

****

I couldn't stay in that house anymore. Not because I was afraid of Nathaniel but I guess a part of me was, but because I needed answers. The texter had sent me an address once before, weeks ago, in a message I had ignored. I scrolled back through my phone, past the photo of Marcus, past the warnings, past the threats dressed as kindness.

There it was. An address on the edge of the city. An abandoned building, according to the map.

I left after dark. Nathaniel was in his study with the door closed. Elora was in the guest bedroom, making phone calls in a low voice I couldn't quite hear. No one saw me sneak out the back door and get into my car.

The drive took forty minutes. The streets grew darker and emptier the farther I went, until I was driving through a part of the city I had never seen before; old warehouses, broken streetlights, buildings with boarded windows. I parked outside a three-story structure that looked like it had been empty for years.

My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat.

This is stupid, I told myself. You don't know who's in there nor do you know what they want.

But I had spent two years being careful, quiet and doing what I was told.

I was done.

I walked to the door and knocked.

It opened before I could knock again.

And I forgot how to breathe.

Standing in the doorway, frail but very much alive, was my grandmother.

Not a ghost and I wasn't hallucinating. Her hair was white now, and her face was lined with years I had thought she never lived to see, but her eyes were the same; sharp, knowing, the kind of eyes that had always seen right through me.

"Hello, Elena," she said, and her voice was exactly how I remembered it. "I'm sorry I couldn't come to you sooner."

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. My grandmother was supposed to be dead. She had died when I was nineteen; a stroke, my mother said, sudden and silent. There had been a funeral. I had cried into a handkerchief for three days.

"You're alive," I finally whispered. "You're actually alive."

She stepped back and held the door open wider. "Come inside, child. We don't have much time, and I have so much to explain."

I walked past her into the building, and even though it looked abandoned from the outside, the inside was warm and clean; a small apartment hidden behind the broken windows. There was a couch, table, and a kettle on a hot plate. She had been living here.

"Why?" I asked. "Why did you let everyone think you were dead?"

"Because your mother and father couldn't be trusted with what I knew," she said, lowering herself onto the couch. "And because the only way to protect you was to disappear."

Before I could ask what she meant, my phone buzzed.

It had been ringing before I got here.

I pulled it out of my pocket. Three messages, all from a number I didn't recognize.

"Ms. Elena, this is David, Marcus's assistant."

"He was in a car accident an hour ago. He's at City Hospital."

"He's asking for you. Please come."

The phone slipped from my hand and clattered onto the floor.

My grandmother looked at me with knowing eyes. "What is it?"

"Marcus," I said, and my voice cracked. "He's been hurt."

She didn't ask who Marcus was. She just stood up and took my hand, and her grip was stronger than I expected.

"Go," she said. "We'll talk later. But Elena, I'm not going anywhere. I've been waiting years to find you again. I can wait a little longer."

I bent down, picked up my phone, and ran for the door.

Behind me, my grandmother's voice followed me into the night: "You're stronger than you know, child. Now go prove it."

I didn't look back.

Because for the first time in years, I had two people who needed me, and I wasn't going to lose either of them.