Vale’s smile vanished.
Nathan looked at him coldly.
“You taught my father that power comes from owning secrets. I learned something better.”
The sound of sirens rose in the distance.
Vale’s men shifted in the hallway.
Vale stared at Nathan with quiet fury. “You recorded me?”
“No,” Nathan said.
A voice spoke from the phone’s speaker.
“I did.”
My knees nearly gave way.
“Mom?”
My mother’s voice came through weak but steady.
“Maya, run.”
A crash sounded somewhere on the other end of the line.
Then the call went dead.
For half a heartbeat, nobody moved.
Then Vale’s calm shattered.
“Take the box,” he snapped.
Nathan grabbed my hand.
This time, I did not resist.
We ran.
Through the kitchen, out the back door, across the wet grass and into the alley behind my childhood home. Men shouted behind us. Nathan kept hold of my hand, not dragging me, not controlling me, but anchoring me as the night split open with sirens and footsteps and the roar of approaching engines.
At the end of the alley, a black SUV screeched to a stop.
Harper leaned out of the passenger window.
“Get in!”
I had never loved anyone more in my life.
Nathan pushed me in first, climbed after me, and slammed the door.
The SUV tore away just as Vale’s men reached the alley mouth.
Harper twisted around, eyes wide. “I swear, Maya, if this is your version of finally dating, we need to discuss your standards.”
I laughed.
It came out broken and hysterical, half sob, half relief.
Then I looked down.
The metal box was still in my arms.
Nathan sat beside me, breathing hard, blood on one knuckle, his face lit by passing streetlights.
“You should hate me,” he said quietly.
I looked at the man who had hidden the truth.
The man who had found the truth.
The man who might still destroy me.
And the man who had just chosen me in front of the person who could take everything from him.
“I don’t know what I feel,” I said.
His eyes lowered.
“But I know this,” I continued. “If my mother is alive, we find her. If my father was robbed, we prove it. And if you lied to me again…”
He looked back at me.
“I won’t.”
I wanted to believe him.
That was the most dangerous part.
Harper sped through the sleeping city while sirens faded behind us. My phone buzzed in my pocket.
Unknown number.
I answered with shaking hands.
For a moment, there was only static.
Then my mother whispered, “Maya, listen carefully. The notebooks are not the real evidence.”
My blood chilled.
“What?”
“The real evidence is inside Northstar.”
Nathan went still beside me.
My mother’s voice dropped lower.
“And Nathan is not Richard Carter’s only son.”
The line cut out.
Nathan stared at my phone.
I stared at him.
And somewhere in the darkness of Chicago, another Carter had just become the most dangerous name in my life.
