All Chapters of Ruined By Mr. Cross: Chapter 111 - Chapter 120

Selene’s PovThe cabin looked different in daylight, smaller somehow, the menace of the night before drained out of it by ordinary morning sun slanting through bare trees. Cassandra met us on the porch, her face gray with lack of sleep, and I saw the moment she registered we’d actually come, some tension in her shoulders easing.“She’s inside,” Cassandra said. “She hasn’t slept. She’s just been sitting there, waiting.”Damien’s hand found the small of my back as we climbed the steps, steady, familiar, and I let myself lean into it for just a moment before we crossed the threshold.Vivienne looked up from the same worn couch where Lucy had sat wrapped in a blanket less than twelve hours earlier, and something in my chest twisted at the sight of it, the ghost of my daughter’s small shape still somehow visible in the cushions.“You came,” she said.“You asked us to,” Damien said, his voice even, giving nothing away. “That doesn’t mean anything’s decided.”“I know.” Vivienne’s hands twist

Selene’s PovLucy fell asleep in the car on the way back from the lake, sand still crusted between her toes, and by the time we’d carried her inside and settled her for an early bath and an even earlier bed, the light outside had gone the deep gold of early evening, the kind that made the whole house feel briefly, impossibly peaceful.I found Damien on the back porch afterward, two glasses of wine already poured, his tie long since abandoned somewhere over the course of the day, sleeves pushed up his forearms. He handed me a glass without a word, and I took it, settling into the chair beside his, close enough that our knees touched.“She asked me something at the lake,” I said. “While you were skipping stones with her.”“What.”“Whether Aunt Vivienne loved her the way we do.” I watched the last light catch the surface of the wine, turning it the color of the sky above us. “I didn’t know what to tell her. I still don’t, honestly.”Damien was quiet for a moment, turning his glass slowly

Selene’s PovElena Wade’s office looked exactly as it always had, warm wood and soft lighting, a framed photo of her father shaking hands with a senator on the credenza, and I found myself studying every ordinary detail like it might betray something the woman herself wouldn’t.“Selene. Damien.” She rose from behind her desk, smiling, unguarded in a way that either meant total innocence or total confidence in her own performance. “This is unexpected. Is everything all right with the guardianship paperwork?”“We need to ask you something,” Damien said, no preamble, taking the seat across from her without waiting to be offered it. I sat beside him, close enough that our knees touched, needing the contact before this conversation went wherever it was going to go. “Two nights ago, our daughter was taken from a car on Route 9. The property she was taken to traces back through a shell company. That shell company traces back to paperwork you filed personally, eleven years ago.”Elena’s face

Selene’s PovRobert Wade agreed to meet us on his own turf, a members’ club downtown with dark wood paneling and the particular hush of old money, and I understood the choice for what it was before we’d even sat down — a man reminding us, subtly, that he’d built his standing long before either of us existed.“Damien. Selene.” He rose to greet us, warm, unhurried, nothing in his manner suggesting a man whose name had surfaced in correspondence with two dead conspirators. “Elena mentioned you’d want to talk. I confess I’m still trying to understand what about.”“Helena Marsh,” Damien said, taking a seat without preamble, his hand finding mine under the table the moment we sat, a small steadying anchor before whatever came next. “Vivienne Cross. Correspondence with both of them, eighteen months ago, under your firm’s letterhead.”Something flickered behind Robert’s eyes, quick, controlled, the practiced stillness of a man who’d spent decades in rooms exactly like this one learning not to

Selene’s PovRobert Wade’s biometric release took less than a minute once he actually sat down to authorize it, and I found myself holding my breath through all sixty seconds of it, Damien’s hand tight around mine at the edge of the desk, Marcus and Elena both hovering behind the trustee’s chair like the answer might dissolve if they blinked.The screen resolved, and Robert went very still.“What,” Damien said. “Robert. What does it say.”Robert turned the monitor toward us slowly, and I read the name twice before it fully landed, the same way I’d read she’s not who you think twice on my phone screen four nights ago.Beneficiary: Talia Reyes.The room seemed to tilt. Talia, who’d driven Lucy home from Naomi’s that first terrible night. Talia, who’d stood in our driveway with her face white in the porch light and said she’s not there.“That’s not possible,” I said, my voice sounding distant even to myself. “Talia found her at the cabin. Talia’s the one who told us Lucy was missing in t