Chapter 8: Someone Is Talking

Charles and Richard were both in the office when Adrian walked in, and neither of them looked like men who wanted to sit down and talk calmly.

"Close the door," Richard said.

Adrian closed it. "What's going on."

"This is what's going on." Richard turned his laptop around so Adrian could see the screen. A headline sat across the top of a major news site, bold and impossible to miss. Police Spotted at Investor Preston Vale's Home Night of Charity Gala. Connection to Knight Wedding Suspected.

"It's not just online anymore," Charles said. "It's the front page of two morning editions already being printed as we speak."

"I warned you," Richard said, his voice sharp. "I told you exactly what would happen if the police got involved before we understood what we were dealing with. This is precisely it."

"Someone put a gun to Claire's head in my own house," Adrian said. "I wasn't going to just sit on that."

"And now it's a headline," Richard snapped. "Now every reporter in this city is asking questions we can't answer, and Preston Vale is furious, calling my office, calling Charles's office, demanding to know why police showed up at his home in front of his own guests. He's talking about lawyers. About suing everyone involved."

"Let him sue."

"This isn't a game, Adrian." Charles's voice was hard now too, both older men united against him in a way Adrian hadn't expected. "You went around your father in law's wishes, you brought in outside police without warning either of us, and now the exact disaster he was trying to prevent is happening in real time."

"I'm not sorry I tried to protect my wife."

"No one is asking you to be sorry for that," Richard said, quieter now, though no less angry. "I am asking you to understand that every move we make from here on has consequences we may not be able to undo. Sophia is still missing. If this story grows the way it's growing, her name is next."

"How would a reporter even connect police at Vale's house to my wedding," Adrian said. "That's not a guess anyone makes on their own."

"It isn't," Richard said grimly. "Which means someone told them. Directly."

"The same someone who tipped off Vale before Marsh's people arrived?"

"Maybe. Maybe someone else entirely." Charles rubbed his temples. "We don't know who yet. That's what worries me more than the headline itself. Whoever this is, they have access to more than one part of this. Vale's world, and now the press."

"So we still don't know who's talking," Adrian said.

"No," Richard said. "And until we do, none of us can trust that anything we say in private actually stays private."

The room went quiet for a moment, the weight of that landing on all three of them.

"So what do we do," Adrian said finally.

"We get ahead of it," Charles said. "A statement, something vague, something that gives them nothing to actually dig into. No mention of Sophia. No mention of Vale by name if we can help it."

"And if that doesn't work?"

Neither man answered right away, and the silence told Adrian everything he needed to know.

"Adrian." Charles's voice dropped, quieter now. "There are things about this I still can't tell you. But I need you to understand, if this story grows the way I think it might, it isn't just your marriage that gets exposed. It's everything your grandfather and I, and Richard, spent years trying to keep buried."

"Then tell me what that is."

"Not tonight." Charles looked exhausted, older than Adrian had ever seen him. "Tonight, we just need to survive the next twelve hours."

Adrian's phone buzzed before he could push further. A text from Claire.

Someone's outside the gate. Says he's a reporter. Says he wants to ask me about Preston Vale.

Adrian's blood went cold.

He called her immediately. She picked up on the first ring, her voice tight and controlled in a way that told him she was trying hard not to panic.

"He's still out there," she said. "Security's holding him at the gate, but he's not leaving. He keeps saying he just wants a comment."

"Don't go near him. Don't say a single word. I'm on my way back right now."

"Adrian." Her voice cracked slightly. "What is happening. Why does a reporter know Vale's name at all."

"I'll explain everything the second I'm home," Adrian said. "Just stay inside. Please."

He hung up and looked at his father and Richard, both of them watching him with the same grim, exhausted expression.

"They're already at the house," Adrian said.

Richard closed his eyes for a moment. "Then it's happening faster than any of us hoped."

"Go," Charles said. "Protect her. We'll handle what we can from here."

Adrian was already moving toward the door when his phone buzzed again, a different number this time, one he didn't recognize.

He answered without thinking.

"Mr. Knight," a woman's voice said, calm and pleasant, entirely too pleasant for the hour. "This is Rachel Ito, with the Metro Ledger. I was hoping you could comment on reports that police visited investor Preston Vale's home tonight in connection with an incident at your own residence."

Adrian's jaw tightened. "No comment."

"Of course. One more question, if I may. Is it true your wife, Sophia Bennett, hasn't been seen publicly since your wedding day?"

Adrian froze in the doorway, the question landing like a blow.

"How did you get this number," he said quietly.

The woman on the line only laughed, soft and knowing. "I have my sources, Mr. Knight. I'll let you go for now. I'm sure we'll speak again very soon."

The line went dead.

Adrian stood frozen for a long moment, staring at the phone in his hand, understanding all at once that whoever the leak was, they weren't just talking to Vale anymore.

They were talking to the press.