All Chapters of The love we lied about : Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

“Who did she contact,” I asked, phone gripped tight enough that my knuckles ached. “A woman named Marcus knows,” Reyes said. “Cole’s foster brother, I understand. Someone reached out to him tonight, claiming to speak for Evelyn, asking questions about Cole’s past that line up with exactly what she threatened to expose.” Cole went very still beside me. “Is he okay.” “He’s fine. Scared, but fine. He called us the second it happened, which tells me he’s more on your side than Evelyn probably expected.” A pause. “I wanted you to hear it from me before it turned into a headline you didn’t see coming. Get some rest. We’ll talk more tomorrow.” The call ended, and the porch went quiet except for the wind moving through trees I still couldn’t fully see in the dark. Cole sat with his elbows on his knees, staring at nothing, some old fear I recognized from the hospital settling back over his face. “She’s not going to stop,” he said. “Even from wherever they’re holding her.” “I know.” “Mar

“Gone how,” Cole said, voice sharp enough that Reyes paused on the other end of the line. “People don’t just disappear from a federal transport.” “They do when someone on the inside helps them,” Reyes said. “We found the transport vehicle abandoned forty minutes ago, off a service road outside the airport. The driver’s in the hospital. Evelyn’s not in the vehicle.” My knees felt unsteady enough that I sat down at the counter without deciding to. “The driver. Is he.” “He’ll survive. Concussion, some cuts. Whoever did this wasn’t trying to kill him, just remove him from the equation long enough to get her out.” A pause. “This confirms what I suspected after that letter. She has real help. Someone with resources, someone willing to commit a federal crime to get her free.” “So she’s just out there,” I said. “Somewhere. Right now.” “For the moment, yes. I have every available agent looking for her, and I’ve already increased the security detail on the safe house. Nobody’s getting anyw

Reyes called before either of us had managed more than a few hours of restless sleep, her voice carrying the particular sharpness of someone who’d found something they didn’t expect.“I need to ask you something, Cole,” she said, once we were both sitting up, phone on speaker between us. “Five years ago. The person you were protecting. Was her name Marissa Cole? Marissa Alcott, before she married.”Cole went very still. “How do you know that name.”“Because it just surfaced in Evelyn’s financial records. A trust fund, small, quiet, set up under a shell company eight years ago. The beneficiary is a woman by that name.” A pause. “I need you to tell me who she is to you, Cole. Right now. This connects to something bigger than either of us realized.”Cole’s hand found mine under the blanket, gripping tight enough that I felt the tremor running through him.“She’s my sister,” he said quietly. “Half-sister. Different fathers, same mother, who wasn’t around for either of us long enough to ma

The call came through on a secured line Reyes set up herself, and Cole’s hands shook as he held the phone, staring at it like the five years since he’d last heard her voice might have changed everything about how this would go. “You can do this,” I said, sitting close enough that our shoulders touched. “What if she hates me. For staying quiet all this time. For not finding her sooner.” “Then you’ll know, and you’ll deal with it. But I don’t think that’s what’s waiting on the other end of this call.” He pressed the button before he could talk himself out of it. “Marissa?” A pause, breathing on the other end, and then a voice, younger than I expected, cracking on the first word. “Cole?” “It’s me. God, it’s really you.” His own voice broke completely, five years of composure gone in an instant. “I’m so sorry. I should have found you sooner. I should have—” “Stop. Please.” Marissa’s voice steadied slightly, like she’d rehearsed this part. “I ran, Cole. That was my choice, not yours

The courtroom felt smaller than I expected, wood paneling and fluorescent light instead of anything dramatic, a room built for procedure rather than spectacle. Cole sat beside me in the second row, his hand resting over mine on the bench between us, both of us watching the doors at the front of the room like they might reveal something we weren’t prepared for.“You don’t have to testify if it’s too much,” he said quietly, for what felt like the tenth time that morning.“I want to. She doesn’t get to make me afraid of a courtroom on top of everything else.”He squeezed my hand, saying nothing more, and a moment later the side door opened and Evelyn was led in, wearing a plain gray suit instead of a jumpsuit, her lawyer beside her, her posture as composed as it had been the night of her arrest.The proceedings moved faster than I expected. Reyes had warned us the evidence was overwhelming, financial records stretching back years, the studio confrontation, the letter opener recovered and