The brass key was cold in her palm. The newspaper clipping was fragile between her fingers.
Proof.
It was a tangible thing. Not a whispered promise, not a desperate plea. It was a fact, printed in faded ink. Leo was Cassandra’s adopted brother, not her son.
Kian wasn’t a liar about that.
The realization didn’t bring relief. It brought a terrifying, nauseating wave of confusion. If he was telling the truth about this, was he telling the truth about everything else? About his mother’s war? About his reasons for hiding who he was?
Audrey sank onto the arm of Maya’s sofa, her legs too weak to hold her.
She looked from the clipping to the key. One was a key to the past, unlocking a lie. The other was a key to a door. To a place. To a man she didn’t know if she could ever trust again.
The Crow’s Nest. His small, simple apartment. The world he had built to escape the world he owned. An invitation back to the only place that had ever felt real between them.
Her hand closed around the key, the metal biting into her skin. It was a temptation. A dangerous, seductive whisper that said, Maybe it wasn’t all a lie.
No. She couldn’t. Not yet. It was too soon. The wound was too raw.
She spent the rest of the day in a haze. She read the letter again. And again. The words shifted with each reading. The first time, they were the excuses of a liar. The second, a desperate plea. Now, supported by the evidence of the clipping, they read like a confession. A map of his mistakes.
Maya came home that evening to find Audrey sitting in the dark, the letter and the clipping laid out on the coffee table like evidence in a trial.
“Another one?” Maya asked softly, nodding at the new envelope.
Audrey just nodded.
Maya didn’t press. She just went into the kitchen and started making dinner. The simple, domestic sounds of chopping and sizzling were a comfort.
“The museum board called,” Audrey said to the wall. “They cleared me. The complaint was traced to Jenna Anderson.”
Maya stopped chopping. “Cole’s sister?”
“An anonymous tip led them to her.” Audrey’s voice was flat. Lifeless.
Maya came into the living room, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. She looked at the letter, then at Audrey’s hollowed-out expression.
“It was him, wasn’t it?” Maya said. “The anonymous tip. It was Kian.”
“I think so.”
“He’s fighting for you, Audrey.”
“Or he’s manipulating me,” Audrey shot back, the old fear flaring up. “This is what powerful men do. They pull strings. They fix things. It’s another form of control.”
“Is it?” Maya asked gently. “Or is it the only way he knows how to show you he’s serious? Cole sabotaged you to make you dependent. This guy… he fixed the damage to set you free.”
The distinction was sharp. It was painful. Audrey didn’t want to see it. It made everything more complicated than simple, righteous anger.
The next morning, another courier arrived. Another padded envelope.
This time, Audrey’s hands were steady as she opened it.
Inside was a single USB drive. A small, black rectangle. Taped to it was a note in Kian’s handwriting.
You deserve to see this. You deserve to know everything.
Audrey stared at it. What new truth or new lie was contained on this little piece of plastic?
She walked over to Maya’s laptop, her heart thudding a slow, heavy rhythm. She plugged it in. A single video file appeared on the screen. She clicked it.
The video was grainy, clearly taken from a hidden security camera. The setting was a lavish, sun-drenched patio. Beatrice Sterling sat at a wrought-iron table, sipping an iced tea. Across from her was Cassandra Thorne.
“The payment has been transferred,” Beatrice said, her voice as crisp and cold as the video quality was poor. “I expect the next phase to go just as smoothly.”
Cassandra wrung her hands. “I don’t know, Mrs. Sterling. Kian was… furious. And Audrey Wells looked broken. This feels wrong.”
“You are being paid an astronomical sum to feel wrong, my dear,” Beatrice replied without a flicker of emotion. “Remember our arrangement. You play the part of the grieving, abandoned mother. The tabloids do the rest. Kian will be seen as a cad, and the little curator will run for the hills. See it through, and your family’s financial troubles will be a distant memory.”
Audrey’s breath caught in her throat. It was real. A conspiracy, laid bare in a grainy video. Kian’s unbelievable story was true. Every horrifying word of it.
She slammed the laptop shut.
The anger she had felt at Kian, the pure, white-hot fury, had nowhere to go. It was redirected, transformed into a cold, terrifying dread aimed at Beatrice. This woman wasn’t just a snob; she was a monster, casually destroying lives from a sun-drenched patio.
Audrey felt a flutter in her womb. A tiny, insistent pulse. Her baby.
Suddenly, everything was crystal clear. This wasn’t about her and Kian anymore. It wasn’t about a broken heart or a billionaire’s lie.
It was about the child she was carrying. A child who might be a Sterling. A grandchild Beatrice would see as either a prize or another threat to be eliminated.
She had to get out of hiding. She couldn’t cower in Maya’s apartment forever. She needed her life back. Her space. Her strength.
She stood up.
“Maya?” she called out, her voice stronger than it had been in days.
Maya appeared in the doorway of her bedroom. “Yeah?”
“I’m going home,” Audrey said. “I need my own space. I need to think.”
“Are you sure? What about Cole?”
“I can’t let him keep me from my own life.” The words felt true as she said them. She was done being a victim. Done running.
An hour later, she stood outside her apartment building. It looked the same, but felt entirely different. It was a place she had shared with a man who had systematically tried to destroy her. Now, she was reclaiming it.
She walked through the lobby, her head held high. She unlocked her apartment door and stepped inside.
The air was stale, still holding the ghost of her perfume from the night of the gala. The emerald dress was still crumpled on her bedroom floor where she’d left it before leaving for Maya’s.
She walked through the sterile, modern space. Cole’s presence was everywhere—in the expensive art he’d chosen, the sleek furniture he’d bought. It felt like his cage.
Her phone, which she’d finally turned back on, buzzed. A text from an unknown number.
I know you’re blocking me. That’s okay. I’ll wait. I just want you to know I’m close by if you need me. I’ll always be watching over you.
It wasn’t signed.
It didn’t have to be.
A chill snaked down her spine. Watching over her. She walked to the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the street. Her heart hammered against her ribs as she scanned the cars parked below.
And then she saw it.
Cole’s silver BMW. Parked across the street, partially hidden by a tree.
He was out there.
Watching. Waiting.
The sanctuary she had come to reclaim had just become a beautiful, transparent prison.