Page 77 of What You left in Me

I dial another number, a private line used to pull truths out of things that think they’re secrets. The circle widens. The search starts.

When someone asks me later if there was a moment everything changed, I’ll tell them it’s complicated. The truth is simpler: nothing ever stays buried if you’re willing to dig. And I am willing.

###

The night is sharp, cutting straight through my jacket like it has a vendetta. I pace the edge of the parking lot, boots grinding gravel. My reflection in the glass doors is blurred and distorted. My jaw is set, eyes cold, and shoulders squared like I’m about to go twelve rounds with a ghost.

I look at that reflection and don’t recognize the man staring back. He looks like a hunter, and I guess he is. Not hunting deer or numbers. Hunting the truth.

Ariane’s face slips into my head without permission. The way her hand shook earlier, curled so tightly around that Styrofoam cup she nearly crushed it. Her lips… fuck, those lips. Those lips that I know the taste and feel of—that I know how to render swollen beneath my own, the ones I have now made part for her carnal whines, pouring out the symphony of pleasure only I can give her.

She deserves more than this cage she’s trapped in. More than Eleanor’s strings. She deserves to know what was done and to be free.

And I’ll tear the goddamn world apart to give her that. My thoughts are interrupted when my phone vibrates in my pocket. I pull it out and see Eric’s name lighting up the screen. It’s almost ten, not especially late, but for Eric who’s out cold by eight every night, it’s like midnight. So, I know immediately: this isn’t a usual call.

“You’re not gonna like this,” Eric says. His tone has that jagged edge, which means he’s been digging somewhere people want him dead for poking.

“I don’t like most things,” I tell him, pinching the bridge of my nose. “Spit it out.”

“Your stepmother,” he says, and already my stomach goes tight. “I found a tie. Name’s Waren. Ring a bell?”

I go still. Waren. That same man at the hospital.

“Drug dealer,” Eric continues.. “Used to supply Elias Vale. That bastard spiraled into an overdose, and Waren was his guy.”

“Fuck,” I mutter, pacing my office like the walls are laughing at me. “And Eleanor?”

“That’s the kicker,” Eric says, his voice dropping low. “She was in contact with him even after his death. In Rhode Island, when she was still working that waitressing job. That’s how she met Richard in the first place. She was tied up with Waren before she was Mrs. Wagner. There’s paper on it… receipts, payments, transfers. Too much smoke for no fire.”

I stop dead, heart punching hard against my ribs. “You’re telling me my father… my father met her after she had been with Waren?”

“I don’t think they were together,” Eric says. “She was close to Waren, but it wasn’t just business. Close. And the timing…”

“Don’t.” My voice is electric and dangerous.

“Finn,” Eric says carefully. “The timing lines up. Year your mother died, Eleanor was in Rhode Island. With Waren. And Richard…”

“No.” The word is iron. “They didn’t. Don’t even fucking suggest it.”

“I’m saying what the record says,” Eric continues. “I don’t think your old man cheated. But Eleanor? She was in the middle of all of it. Too close to Waren. Too close to your father. Too convenient for your mother to end up dead when she did.”

My hand clenches around the phone so hard it could shatter. The silence between us stretches, bitter and ugly.

“Find proof,” I ground out. “Every file, every receipt, every scrap of shit you can dig. If Eleanor breathed near a ledger in Rhode Island, I want it.”

Eric exhales, low. “Careful, Finn. A truth like this doesn’t set anyone free. It burns.”

“Good,” I say. “I like the fire.”

I end the call and put my phone down, taking a deep breath. Before I can stop it, a thought gnaws at me, relentless: if I give Ariane this truth, if I drop it in her lap, and it crushes her, am I any better than Eleanor, the woman I want to see ruined?

Fuck if I know.

My phone buzzes in my hand. One message:Investigation underway. We’ll find something.

Good.

I slide the phone back into my pocket, eyes narrowing.