Chapter 2 - His Wife Didn't Run Because She Stopped Loving Him—She Ran Because Someone Had Turned Their Marriage Into a Prison“Tell me.”
Phoebe held Luca tighter.
Xavier looked across Riverside Park.
People walked dogs.
Children chased pigeons.
Cars moved beyond the trees.
Somewhere among all that ordinary life, someone had just photographed his family.
Every instinct told him to call Marco.
Lock down the park.
Search every exit.
Instead he remembered Phoebe's condition.
No guards.
No surveillance.
No control.
So he stayed where he was.
“Before you left,” he said, “I had you followed.”
Phoebe stared.
“How long?”
“Six weeks.”
She laughed once.
It was not amusement.
“Six weeks.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I thought someone was watching you.”
“You thought someone was watching me, so your solution was to have someone else watch me?”
“When you say it like that—”
“How else would I say it?”
Xavier had no answer.
Elara shifted against his chest.
He looked down at his daughter.
That small movement probably saved the conversation.
Phoebe lowered her voice.
“Who?”
“A private security contractor named Elias Ward.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because I thought you'd be safer if you behaved normally.”
“There it is.”
“What?”
“That word.”
“Safer?”
“No. Thought.”
She stepped closer.
“You thought you knew what I needed. You thought I didn't need explanations. You thought secrecy was protection.”
Xavier swallowed.
“Yes.”
“Did Elias report anything?”
“Yes.”
Phoebe's anger paused.
“What?”
“Someone followed you three times.”
Her face changed.
“Who?”
“We never identified him.”
“And you never told me?”
“No.”
“God, Xavier.”
“I know.”
“No, you don't.”
Luca began fussing.
Phoebe rocked him instinctively.
Xavier watched.
He had imagined fatherhood before.
Not often.
Phoebe had once asked him if he wanted children.
He had answered someday.
Someday was the word busy men used when they assumed life would wait.
Life hadn't.
“After you disappeared,” Xavier continued, “Elias disappeared too.”
Phoebe looked at him sharply.
“When?”
“Within forty-eight hours.”
“Did you think I left with him?”
“No.”
“Did you think he hurt me?”
“I didn't know.”
“Then why didn't you tear the country apart?”
That was the question.
The one Xavier had been avoiding.
He looked at her.
“Because you left a letter.”
Phoebe frowned.
“I didn't leave a letter.”
Xavier stopped breathing.
“What?”
“I left my ring.”
“And a letter.”
“No.”
He remembered every word.
Xavier, don't look for me. I have spent too much of this marriage being protected from truths I deserved to know. Please respect this one decision. If you ever cared about me, let me go.
Phoebe's face drained of color as he recited it.
“I never wrote that.”
Xavier felt cold.
“Someone wanted me to believe you chose complete disappearance.”
“And someone wanted me to believe you rejected our babies.”
Two lies.
Perfectly matched.
Designed to separate them.
Bianca had admitted one side.
But perhaps Bianca herself had only been part of something larger.
Phoebe sat on the bench.
Xavier remained standing.
“Give me your phone.”
She looked up.
“No.”
“Not to take it.”
“Then why?”
“I want to see the number that sent the photograph.”
She hesitated.
Then held the screen toward him without releasing the phone.
Good.
Boundary.
Xavier memorized it.
“May I call Marco?”
“You said you'd come alone.”
“I did.”
“That isn't what I asked.”
“Our children were just photographed.”
Phoebe looked at Luca.
Then Elara.
Fear replaced anger.
“One call.”
Xavier dialed.
Marco answered.
“Boss?”
“I need a number traced.”
He gave it.
Marco paused.
“Problem?”
“Yes.”
“Need a team?”
Xavier looked at Phoebe.
“No.”
Marco sounded surprised.
“No?”
“Not yet.”
“Understood.”
Xavier hung up.
Phoebe looked at him.
“That was difficult for you.”
“Extremely.”
Despite herself, she almost smiled.
It disappeared quickly.
“Give me Elara.”
Xavier's chest tightened.
He didn't want to.
That terrified him.
Because the old version of him would have found a reason to keep holding her.
He kissed Elara's hair once.
Then returned her immediately.
Phoebe noticed.
“Thank you.”
“For giving you your own child?”
“For not making it difficult.”
He looked away.
“I've made enough things difficult.”
They walked.
Slowly.
Two people pushing a stroller between them.
Xavier learned that Luca hated peas.
Elara loved bananas.
Luca slept only if someone rubbed his back.
Elara had started pulling herself upright against furniture.
Both had been born five weeks early.
Phoebe had delivered by emergency C-section.
Alone.
That word destroyed him.
“Was anyone there?”
“My friend Lena.”
“Who?”
“You never met her.”
Of course he hadn't.
There had been an entire part of Phoebe's life he had considered unimportant because it existed outside his world.
“What happened during delivery?”
Phoebe's face tightened.
“You don't need every detail today.”
“Okay.”
He wanted to ask anyway.
Didn't.
Progress sometimes looked like silence.
Then Phoebe asked:
“Were you sleeping with Bianca before I left?”
“No.”
She studied him.
“After?”
“Yes.”
“How soon?”
Xavier hated the answer.
“Three months.”
Phoebe nodded.
Pain moved across her face.
“Of course.”
“It ended months ago.”
“That doesn't matter.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
She stopped walking.
“Because here's what I need you to understand. Bianca lied to me. She manipulated records. She stole my chance to tell you about your children.”
Phoebe's voice shook.
“But she did not destroy our marriage.”
Xavier said nothing.
“We did that.”
He absorbed the word.
We.
Not just him.
But Phoebe continued.
“You created a marriage where another woman could plausibly tell me my husband didn't want his children.”
That was worse.
Because it was true.
“If we'd been healthy, I would have laughed in her face.”
Xavier looked at her.
“But I believed her because by then I didn't know what you wanted.”
His voice was quiet.
“I wanted you.”
“You wanted me in the penthouse.”
“No.”
“You wanted me protected.”
“No.”
“You wanted me available whenever you came home.”
“Phoebe—”
“But did you know what I wanted?”
He stopped.
No.
He didn't.
She saw the answer.
“I wanted to open a bookstore.”
Xavier blinked.
“What?”
She laughed sadly.
“Exactly.”
“A bookstore?”
“With a coffee shop.”
“When?”
“For years.”
“You never told me.”
“I told you three times.”
Xavier remembered fragments.
A storefront she'd pointed out.
A business plan on the dining table.
A conversation interrupted by a phone call.
God.
“I thought it was a hobby.”
Phoebe looked away.
“I know.”
His phone rang.
Marco.
“The number is a burner.”
“Location?”
“Last ping near the park. Dead now.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes.”
“The photograph was routed through an encrypted service we've seen before.”
Xavier's expression changed.
“Where?”
“Ward Security.”
Elias Ward.
Phoebe heard.
“Your security contractor?”
“Yes.”
Marco continued.
“There's more. Elias isn't missing.”
“Where is he?”
“He's been dead for eleven months.”
Xavier stopped.
“What?”
“Body was found under another name in New Jersey. Gunshot. We matched dental records this afternoon.”
Phoebe went pale.
“Who killed him?”
“We don't know.”
Xavier looked at his family.
“Find out.”
“Already working.”
They ended the meeting soon afterward.
Xavier didn't ask where Phoebe lived.
That surprised her.
“You aren't going to ask?”
“You'll tell me when you're ready.”
She studied him.
“Who are you?”
“Apparently getting shot emotionally in a hospital corridor changes a man.”
She almost smiled again.
“Tomorrow,” Phoebe said.
His heart lifted.
“What?”
“You can see them tomorrow.”
“Where?”
“I'll text you.”
“Thank you.”
“And Xavier?”
“Yes?”
“If you investigate me…”
“I won't.”
“If you put anyone outside my home…”
“I won't.”
“If you track my phone…”
“I won't.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“You answered too quickly.”
“Because I've already learned those answers.”
Phoebe left.
Xavier stood watching until she disappeared.
Then he went home and opened the safe where he'd kept her farewell letter for fourteen months.
He photographed it.
Sent it to a forensic document examiner.
The answer came the next morning.
The handwriting was an excellent imitation.
But it wasn't Phoebe's.
Someone had forged the goodbye letter.
By noon, Marco found something else.
Elias Ward had received $180,000 during the months before Phoebe disappeared.
Payments from an offshore account.
The beneficial owner?
A company controlled by Xavier's uncle.
Sebastian Drion.
The man who had helped raise Xavier after his father's murder.
The man who had taught him how to run the family organization.
The man Xavier trusted more than almost anyone alive.
Xavier called Sebastian.
“Come to my office.”
His uncle arrived thirty minutes later.
Gray suit.
Silver hair.
Calm smile.
“You look terrible.”
Xavier placed Phoebe's forged letter on the desk.
Sebastian's smile disappeared.
“Where did you get that?”
Wrong answer.
Xavier leaned back.
“Interesting.”
Sebastian realized his mistake.
Too late.
“You recognize it.”
“No.”
“You just asked where I got it.”
“Because it's obviously personal.”
Xavier placed another document beside it.
Elias Ward's payment records.
Sebastian stared.
“Explain.”
“I can't.”
“Try.”
His uncle's expression changed.
“Some things were done to protect you.”
Xavier almost laughed.
There it was again.
Protection.
The word every liar in his life apparently loved.
“From my pregnant wife?”
Sebastian froze.
He hadn't known Xavier knew.
That was confirmation enough.
“You knew.”
Sebastian sat down.
“Xavier—”
“You knew Phoebe was pregnant.”
“Yes.”
The room became silent.
“How long?”
“Before she left.”
Xavier stood.
Sebastian raised a hand.
“Listen to me.”
“You have thirty seconds before I forget you're my father's brother.”
Sebastian's voice hardened.
“Phoebe was going to destroy everything.”
“What?”
“She was asking questions.”
“About what?”
“Your father's death.”
Xavier stopped.
His father Luca Drion had been murdered seventeen years earlier.
A restaurant bombing.
Wrong place.
Wrong alliance.
That was the story Xavier had been told.
Sebastian continued.
“Phoebe found records in the penthouse.”
“What records?”
“Your father's.”
“What did they say?”
“That his death wasn't ordered by a rival family.”
Xavier's blood went cold.
“Who ordered it?”
Sebastian looked at him.
“I did.”
For the first time in years, Xavier Drion forgot how to speak.
Sebastian continued.
“Your father was going to dismantle the organization.”
Xavier stared.
“He wanted out.”
“He wanted to hand everything to prosecutors.”
“You killed him.”
“I saved the family.”
Xavier moved around the desk.
Sebastian didn't retreat.
“And Phoebe found out?”
“She found enough.”
“So you had her followed.”
“Yes.”
“You intercepted the hospital messages.”
“Bianca handled that.”
“You forged the letter.”
“Yes.”
“Why not kill Phoebe?”
Sebastian looked almost offended.
“Because she was carrying your children.”
Xavier wanted to break every bone in his body.
Instead he asked:
“Where is the evidence?”
Sebastian smiled faintly.
“Phoebe has it.”
“No.”
“She doesn't know she has it.”
“What does that mean?”
“Your father hid the original records inside something that eventually came into her possession.”
“What?”
Sebastian leaned closer.
“The music box.”
Xavier knew it instantly.
A small wooden music box his mother had given Phoebe as a wedding gift.
Phoebe had taken it when she left.
Sebastian stood.
“If you want your children alive, get that box before someone else does.”
Xavier's eyes narrowed.
“Who?”
Sebastian smiled.
“You thought I was the only person your father planned to expose?”
Then the office windows exploded.
Xavier hit the floor.
Gunfire ripped through the room.
Sebastian collapsed.
Blood spread across his shirt.
Marco stormed through the door with security.
Xavier crawled toward his uncle.
“Who?”
Sebastian coughed blood.
“Vincent.”
Xavier froze.
Vincent Drion.
His older half brother.
A man supposedly killed in a boating accident nine years earlier.
Sebastian gripped Xavier's sleeve.
“He's alive.”
Then his hand fell.
May you like
And Xavier realized the war that had destroyed his marriage had begun before he'd ever met Phoebe.
Now it was coming for his children.
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