Chapter 4 - Twelve Years Without Goodbye
Ethan tested the door.
Locked.
Valerie wiped her cheeks.
“Can your security open it?”
“They’re outside.”
“Comforting.”
Despite the danger, Ethan almost smiled.
He called his head of security.
No signal.
Valerie sat beside the deposit box.
“Why did Daniel say I mattered to you?”
Ethan remained silent.
“Ethan.”
“Because he knew me when we were younger.”
“No.”
She stood.
“That isn’t what he meant.”
Ethan turned.
Twelve years collapsed between them.
“I loved you.”
Valerie stopped breathing for a moment.
Ethan continued because stopping now would be cowardice.
“I loved you when I was eighteen.”
“You disappeared.”
“My father threatened everyone I cared about.”
“So you protected me by breaking my heart?”
“Yes.”
“That was not your decision to make.”
“I know.”
“Did you?”
He looked at her.
“Every day.”
Before she could respond, metal scraped outside.
Ethan moved in front of her.
The vault opened.
His security chief stood there.
“We found the employee who locked you in.”
“Who?”
“He’s dead.”
Another message had been placed beside the body.
A photograph of Valerie at seventeen.
Beside her stood Ethan.
Someone had circled Valerie’s face.
Below it:
SHE WAS ALWAYS THE LEVER.
Valerie stared at the photograph.
“Who knew?”
“About us?”
“Yes.”
“Almost nobody.”
“Daniel knew.”
Ethan studied the picture.
It had been taken from across the street from Bennett Bakery.
Someone had been watching them even then.
Twelve years ago.
Before Daniel.
Before Account 417.
Before Ethan inherited anything.
His phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
One sentence:
YOU SHOULD HAVE STAYED AWAY FROM HER.
Then another arrived.
LOOK OUTSIDE.
Ethan crossed to the bank window.
A black SUV waited below.
A woman stepped out.
Valerie came beside him.
Her face went white.
“I know her.”
“Who is she?”
May you like
Valerie whispered a name Ethan had not heard since his father’s funeral.
“Your mother.”
