Chương 8
Adrian looked at Elena.
She refused to meet his eyes.
Mr. Kim lowered his voice.
“I can get you out through service.”
Elena considered it.
A stainless-steel elevator.
The kitchen.
Her locker.
Her coat.
A subway ride downtown where nobody knew anything.
She wanted it so badly she almost moved.
Then Vincent’s phone vibrated.
He looked at the screen.
Adrian saw the name.
“Mercer?”
Vincent immediately locked the phone.
Elena’s whole body tightened.
“Was that him?”
Vincent put the phone into his pocket.
“No.”
Adrian held out his hand.
“Show me.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Then tell me who called.”
“My attorney.”
“Mercer?”
“My attorney.”
Madison stared at him.
“You called someone?”
Vincent did not answer.
“When?”
“Earlier.”
“While we were standing here?”
“I sent a text.”
Madison looked horrified.
“What did you say?”
“That there was a problem.”
Elena’s voice dropped.
“A problem.”
Vincent looked at her.
“I didn’t mean you.”
“What did you mean?”
“The situation.”
“I am the situation.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
She stepped toward him.
“You found out I was here and called a lawyer.”
“I called counsel because private financial information was being discussed in a ballroom.”
“Whose private financial information?”
Vincent had no answer.
Adrian said, “Take the call.”
Vincent shook his head.
“You’re not controlling this.”
“No, you are.”
Adrian’s voice stayed calm.
“That’s the problem.”
The phone vibrated again.
Everyone looked at Vincent’s pocket.
For several seconds, he resisted.
Then he took it out.
The screen showed an incoming call.
He turned it over before Elena could see the name.
Adrian did.
His expression sharpened.
“That isn’t Mercer.”
Vincent ended the call.
“Who was it?”
“Leave it.”
“Who?”
Vincent looked at Elena.
Fear had returned.
Not embarrassment.
Not irritation.
Fear.
Elena noticed.
“So there is somebody else.”
Vincent’s mouth closed.
Madison whispered, “Oh my God.”
He turned to her.
“What?”
“You said he was gone.”
Vincent’s face changed.
Elena looked between them.
“Who?”
Madison stared at him.
“You told me nobody had heard from him in years.”
“Madison.”
“You said that was why the account was stuck.”
Adrian stepped toward them.
“Who are you talking about?”
Madison looked at Elena.
“The man who claimed to be Rafael.”
Elena’s knees nearly gave.
“He’s alive?”
Madison nodded slowly.
“Apparently.”
Vincent snapped, “We don’t know that.”
“Your phone just rang.”
“That proves nothing.”
“Who called?”
Vincent would not answer.
Adrian’s patience broke.
He grabbed Vincent’s wrist.
Not violently, but hard enough to stop him from putting the phone away.
The guests nearest them recoiled.
Elena said, “Adrian.”
He released his brother immediately.
Vincent pulled his hand back.
“You touch me again—”
“Show her.”
“No.”
“Show her the name.”
“There’s nothing to show.”
Madison looked at Vincent.
“If you don’t, I will.”
His eyes widened.
“What?”
She reached beneath the lace at her hip and pulled out a phone concealed in a small satin pocket.
Vincent stared at it.
“You have his number?”
Madison’s face hardened.
“You left the file open on your laptop.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“I took pictures.”
“You went through confidential documents?”
“You lied to me.”
“That doesn’t give you the right—”
“You asked me to marry you while this was sitting in a folder on our kitchen table.”
Guests shifted again.
The groom’s mother took one uncertain step toward them.
Vincent noticed.
“Mom, please.”
She stopped.
Madison unlocked her phone.
Her hands were shaking badly enough that she entered the passcode twice.
Vincent moved toward her.
Adrian stepped between them.
“Don’t.”
“She has company documents.”
“She has a phone.”
“Move.”
“No.”
Madison found the image.
Her face crumpled for a second before she steadied herself.
“Elena.”
Elena did not want to see it.
Every instinct told her not to take another step.
She walked toward Madison anyway.
Madison turned the screen.
It showed a scanned identification document beside a notarized claim form.
The photograph was of a man in his late forties with dark hair, a narrow face, and a scar cutting through one eyebrow.
Elena stared.
Her first reaction was relief.
It was not her father.
Then she noticed the name.
Rafael Luis Ramirez.
Her father’s full name.
Her father’s date of birth.
Her childhood address.
Her mother’s name listed as spouse.
The room disappeared.
“That isn’t him.”
Madison nodded.
“I know.”
“How does he know this?”
“I don’t know.”
Elena enlarged the photograph with two fingers.
Something about the man bothered her.
Not recognition.
Almost recognition.
She looked at the scar.
Then the nose.
Then the ears.
Her breath stopped.
“No.”
Adrian leaned closer.
“What?”
Elena took the phone from Madison.
She zoomed further.
The photograph had probably been taken fifteen years earlier.
The man was younger.
Thinner.
But she had seen him.
At Christmas dinners.
At a funeral.
Once outside her elementary school arguing with her father beside a parked van.
“My uncle.”
Adrian stared at her.
Elena could barely form the words.
“That’s my father’s brother.”
Vincent’s face went gray.
“What was his name?”
Elena looked up.
“Gabriel Ramirez.”
Madison whispered, “Is he alive?”
Elena’s thumb hovered over the photograph.
The last time she had seen Gabriel, she had been nineteen.
He had borrowed eight hundred dollars from her mother and disappeared after an argument about gambling.
Her mother had refused to speak his name afterward.
Elena had assumed he left New York.
“I don’t know.”
Vincent’s phone vibrated for a third time.
This time he looked at it before he could stop himself.
Elena saw the screen.
One name appeared.
Gabriel.
Nobody spoke.
Vincent slowly raised his eyes to hers.
And Elena understood that whatever had happened eleven years ago was not finished with her.
Elena watched Vincent’s thumb hover over the green answer icon until the call stopped.
For one second, nobody moved.
Then Gabriel called again.
The name pulsed on the screen between Vincent’s fingers.
Adrian looked at Elena.
“Do you want him to answer?”
She did not.
Every part of her body said no.
No to Gabriel’s voice.
May you like
No to another piece of the past becoming real.
No to learning that while she had been hauling trays through hotel ballrooms, people with lawyers and private investigators had been discussing her family as if they owned the file.
