Chương 6
“You built something with help.”
“That does not mean it was not mine.”
“No.”
I shook my head.
“That is not the problem.”
“Then what is?”
“You forgot who was standing beside you before everyone started applauding.”
The silence afterward felt different.
Less like a fight.
More like an ending.
Julian picked up his folder.
“We are done here.”
Marcus did not stop him.
Neither did I.
Because sometimes people had to leave with their own choices.
After he left, Marcus looked at me.
“You okay?”
I nodded.
Then I immediately shook my head.
“No.”
It was the first honest answer I had given all day.
Marcus sat across from me.
“That is allowed.”
I looked through the glass wall.
Outside, strangers walked past.
A man carried a grocery bag.
A woman pushed a stroller.
A delivery worker checked his phone while waiting for an elevator.
Everyone was carrying something.
Everyone had a story nobody else could see.
“I thought if I found the truth, I would feel better,” I said.
Marcus did not answer immediately.
“That is usually not how truth works.”
“No?”
“No.”
He looked at the folder.
“Sometimes truth just removes the excuse you were using to stay.”
That night, I did something I had avoided.
I opened the old photo album on my phone.
Not the recent ones.
The old ones.
Before the penthouse.
Before the company became famous.
Before Julian started wearing watches that cost more than cars.
There was one picture from our first apartment.
The kitchen was tiny.
The cabinets were ugly.
The lighting was terrible.
Julian was standing beside the stove holding a burned piece of toast.
He looked embarrassed.
I remembered that morning.
He had tried to make breakfast because I had worked late.
He had failed completely.
We ate cereal instead.
At the time, I thought it was one of the happiest mornings of my life.
I hated that memory still made me smile.
Because anger would have been easier.
Anger could close a door.
Love left the door cracked open.
A notification appeared on my phone.
A message from an unknown number.
For a moment, I thought about ignoring it.
Then I opened it.
There was only one sentence.
I need to talk to you before Julian finds out what I know.
I stared at the screen.
The number was unfamiliar.
But the name underneath the message was not.
Chloe Bennett.
And for the first time since this began, I wondered if Julian was not the only person who had been hiding something.
Chloe Bennett.
And for several seconds, I simply stared at the message.
The room around me felt strangely quiet.
The refrigerator hummed in the kitchen.
The old wooden floor creaked somewhere upstairs.
Lily made a small sound in her sleep and moved her fingers against the blanket.
Everything looked normal.
But my life had become a place where normal things could hide impossible truths.
I read the message again.
I need to talk to you before Julian finds out what I know.
My first reaction was not curiosity.
It was distrust.
Chloe was not a stranger.
She was the woman who had stood in my hospital room while my daughter was barely breathing the same air for the first time.
She was the woman who had announced her pregnancy like she was receiving an award.
She was the woman Julian had chosen.
People did not usually reach out after winning.
They reached out when something had changed.
I placed the phone on the table.
Then I picked it up again.
I typed a response.
What do you know?
I deleted it.
Too eager.
Too much information.
I tried again.
Why should I talk to you?
That felt more honest.
I sent it.
The reply came almost immediately.
Because I was wrong about him.
I stared at those words.
Not because they surprised me.
Because they sounded like something I had once said about myself.
I was wrong about him.
The sentence carried a kind of humiliation that only came from defending someone who did not deserve it.
I did not answer.
Five minutes passed.
Then ten.
Finally, another message appeared.
Please.
Not for you.
For Lily.
My chest tightened.
Nobody used my daughter’s name casually.
Not anymore.
I called Marcus before responding.
He answered on the second ring.
“What happened?”
“How did you know something happened?”
“Because you only call after midnight when something happens.”
I glanced at the clock.
It was barely nine.
“You are dramatic.”
“I learned from the Sterling family.”
Despite everything, I smiled.
Then I sent him a screenshot.
He was silent after reading it.
Long enough that I knew he was taking it seriously.
“Do not meet her alone,” he said.
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“Good.”
“Do you think she is telling the truth?”
“I think people usually tell the truth when they have something to lose.”
“That is not an answer.”
“No.”
His voice became quieter.
“It is not.”
I looked at the message again.
“Should I meet her?”
Marcus did not respond immediately.
That was rare.
He always had an opinion.
Always had a strategy.
The hesitation bothered me more than an answer would have.
“Marcus?”
“Find out what she knows.”
“That sounds like a yes.”
“It sounds like information is valuable.”
“You are impossible.”
“And you are still my little sister.”
The words caught me off guard.
Because for a moment, before the lawyers and documents and betrayal, I was just that.
His little sister.
The girl who used to steal his books and deny it even when her name was written inside.
The girl who cried when he left for college.
The girl who believed older brothers knew everything.
Maybe they did not.
Maybe they just learned how to stand beside you when everything fell apart.
I agreed to meet Chloe the next afternoon.
Not at a private place.
Not somewhere hidden.
A small coffee shop near Central Park.
Public.
May you like
Neutral.
A place where nobody could pretend they were in control.
