Chapter 3 - MY EX BETRAYED ME AGAIN—BUT THIS TIME HE WAS TERRIFIED OF THE MAN HE HAD BEEN WORKING FOR
Kieran moved me to a hotel.
Not his penthouse.
I refused that.
He booked the room across from mine.
That compromise told me more about him than flowers could have.
Ryan disappeared.
Sarah contacted me.
That was unexpected.
Her message contained four words.
I need to confess.
We met in a hotel restaurant.
Kieran sat twenty feet away.
My choice.
Sarah looked terrible.
“I’m sorry.”
“About which betrayal?”
She cried.
I felt nothing.
Maybe healing sometimes looked like indifference.
“Ryan asked me to get close to you.”
My stomach dropped.
“When?”
“Before we became friends.”
Four years before I caught them together.
“What?”
“He knew your grandmother had documents.”
“And you?”
“I worked at Harrow.”
Of course.
The friendship.
The affair.
Everything had been contaminated.
“Did any part of our friendship mean anything?”
“Yes.”
I laughed.
She cried harder.
“I know you won’t believe me.”
“You’re right.”
“Ryan wanted access to your apartment.”
“The night I caught you?”
She nodded.
“We were searching.”
My heart stopped.
“You weren’t sleeping together?”
“We had.”
That hurt.
“But that night, no.”
“Why were you in bed?”
“We heard you coming. Ryan panicked.”
I stared.
“That’s the stupidest cover story I’ve ever heard.”
“I know.”
“What were you searching for?”
“The music box.”
There it was.
Grandma had protected me without my knowing.
Sarah continued.
“Ryan’s grandfather died, but Victor kept paying the family.”
“Kieran’s uncle.”
“Yes.”
“Ryan works for Victor?”
“He has for years.”
I looked toward Kieran.
He could tell from my face.
He approached.
Sarah immediately became afraid.
Kieran sat.
“Sarah.”
“You know me?”
“I know everyone Harrow Financial paid during the last decade.”
She swallowed.
“Then you know Ryan.”
“Yes.”
“Victor is going to kill him.”
“Why?”
“Because Ryan contacted Lily.”
I looked at her.
“He came to the shop because he was warning me?”
“Partly.”
Of course.
Ryan could never manage a pure motive.
“He wanted you back,” Sarah said. “But he also discovered Victor planned to retrieve the watch.”
“Why was Ryan afraid of Kieran?”
She looked at his wrist.
“The watch.”
Kieran’s modern watch.
“What about it?”
Kieran removed it.
On the case was a tiny wolf crest.
Sarah pointed.
“Victor told Ryan anyone wearing that crest directly answers to the head of the Volkov family.”
I looked at Kieran.
“So Ryan realized who you were.”
“Yes.”
Sarah continued.
“He knew Victor would consider Kieran finding you a disaster.”
“Where is Ryan now?”
“I don’t know.”
Then Sarah gave us a flash drive.
Ryan had copied Harrow records.
They proved Victor and Malcolm stole more than sixty million dollars over twenty-seven years.
They also contained payment records from the week my mother died.
One payment went to a man named Thomas Reed.
Kieran recognized him.
“A contract killer.”
My stomach turned.
Another payment occurred three hours after Nikolai died.
Same man.
Same account.
Proof.
Almost.
Then we found the audio file.
My mother’s voice.
I had not heard it in twenty-seven years.
The first sound broke me.
“If anything happens to Nikolai or me, Victor Volkov is responsible.”
I covered my mouth.
Kieran stood abruptly and walked away.
I followed.
He was crying.
Quietly.
I touched his back.
He turned.
“Can I?”
He meant hold me.
I nodded.
We stood together while the voices of our dead parents played from a laptop behind us.
My mother had recorded Victor admitting he and Malcolm were stealing.
Nikolai planned to remove Victor from the organization.
Victor threatened him.
The recording ended.
We had enough.
Kieran called federal investigators.
That surprised me.
“You’re going to the FBI?”
“Yes.”
“What about handling it yourself?”
His eyes met mine.
“You asked me to show you what kind of man I am.”
My heart changed.
Just slightly.
Victor was arrested two days later.
Or should have been.
He escaped before agents arrived.
Ryan resurfaced that night.
Bleeding.
He collapsed outside Ambridge Antiques.
Mrs. Chen called me.
At the hospital, Ryan looked smaller than I remembered.
Kieran stayed outside the room.
Again, my choice.
Ryan looked at me.
“I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
“I loved you.”
“Maybe.”
His eyes filled.
“That’s all?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“That you loved me too.”
“I did.”
Past tense.
He heard it.
Good.
“Victor knows about the recording,” Ryan said.
“How?”
“Sarah.”
I froze.
“She gave us the drive.”
“Because Victor told her to.”
My blood went cold.
A trap.
I ran into the hallway.
Kieran was already on his phone.
“What?”
I told him.
His face changed.
Then his security director called.
Mrs. Chen was missing.
Ambridge Antiques had been broken into.
And Victor had left a message.
BRING THE ORIGINAL WATCH.
MIDNIGHT.
COME WITH LILY.
Kieran immediately said no.
I immediately said yes.
We argued.
Loudly.
Finally, I said, “Mrs. Chen protected my grandmother’s secret for years. I’m going.”
“I won’t use you as bait.”
“You aren’t using me. I’m choosing.”
He stopped.
That word.
Choosing.
He understood.
At midnight, we went.
Police knew.
Federal agents knew.
Victor didn’t.
The meeting point was an abandoned railway warehouse.
Mrs. Chen sat tied to a chair.
Alive.
Victor stood behind her.
He looked like an older version of Kieran.
Same eyes.
None of the restraint.
“Nephew.”
Kieran said nothing.
Victor smiled at me.
“Anna’s daughter.”
“You murdered her.”
“She became inconvenient.”
Kieran moved.
I caught his hand.
He stopped.
Victor laughed.
“She controls you already.”
“No,” Kieran said.
He looked at me.
“She reminds me I can control myself.”
Victor’s smile disappeared.
Good answer.
I held up Nikolai’s watch.
“You want this?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“There’s a compartment.”
Kieran looked at me.
We had never found one.
Victor explained.
Nikolai had hidden bearer-account access codes inside the watch.
Millions.
The stolen money had never been recovered because Nikolai moved it before his death.
Victor had spent twenty-seven years searching.
Grandma had hidden the watch.
Ryan had spent years trying to find it.
All for money.
Always money.
I opened the watch.
Then dropped it.
Victor shouted.
Kieran moved.
Agents stormed the building.
Victor grabbed Mrs. Chen.
Gun raised.
Kieran stopped.
“Let her go.”
“Give me the watch!”
I picked it up.
Then noticed something.
The engraving.
The six-toed dog.
Its eye moved.
A tiny latch.
I pressed it.
The compartment opened.
Inside was not an account code.
A strip of paper.
Three words.
EVELYN HAS EVERYTHING.
I laughed.
Victor stared.
“No.”
My grandmother had outsmarted him.
The money had never been inside.
She had transferred Nikolai’s recovered assets into a protected trust decades earlier.
A trust whose beneficiary was—
Kieran.
He had inherited the stolen money without knowing it.
Victor had destroyed lives searching for something already legally beyond his reach.
His face collapsed.
Then he raised the gun toward me.
Kieran moved.
A shot exploded.
I fell.
Not because I was hit.
Because Kieran tackled me.
Agents fired.
Victor dropped.
Alive.
Wounded.
Arrested.
Kieran lay over me.
“Lily?”
“I’m okay.”
His hands shook.
“Are you hit?”
“No.”
He closed his eyes.
I touched his face.
“Kieran.”
He looked at me.
I kissed him.
Not for Ryan.
Not through a shop window.
Not to convince anyone of anything.
Because I wanted to.
When I pulled away, Kieran looked stunned.
“That wasn’t part of a plan?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Then he kissed me back.
And somewhere behind us, Mrs. Chen shouted:
“Could somebody untie me before the romance continues?”
I started laughing.
Even Kieran laughed.
May you like
For one beautiful second, surrounded by police, broken glass, and twenty-seven years of secrets—
I felt free.
