Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Henry
I blew out a deep breath as I closed the door to my office, as if the solid barrier could muffle the echo of Ariana’s voice in my mind.
Correction .
Her moan.
And my body was still suffering from the effects of that fucking moan.
Which was exactly why I needed to put space between us before I acted on these urges with the woman I was supposed to hate.
This was what I needed. To surround myself with the familiarity of my office.
The Underworld, the nickname Gideon had given this place, was supposed to be my escape. My sanctum. A stone-and-steel bunker hidden deep in the mountains, far from anything remotely resembling a distraction.
Except now Ariana fucking Kane was upstairs, wearing my shirt, snuggling with my dog, while I hid away down here, trying to forget the way my body reacted when she moaned. How her tongue slid along her lips as she swiped the hot chocolate off them.
How I’d wanted to lick the hot chocolate off them, too.
I dropped into the chair and stared at the wall of monitors. Some looped live feeds from around my property. Others flashed snippets of code, encrypted strings waiting to be cracked. One screen cycled through various databases, hoping to identify the man who tried to take Ariana.
But I ignored it all.
Instead, I navigated to a bookmarked page I hadn’t been able to let go of, no matter how many times I told myself I should… Sarah’s travel vlog, Wanderlight .
The profile photo hadn’t changed in months. Why would it? There was no one alive to change it.
Sunlight caught her hair just right, giving the dark brown strands a copper sheen. Her green eyes sparkled. Her smile practically glowed through the screen.
She looked so damn alive.
She was so damn alive.
Not anymore.
Despite my better judgment, I clicked on the last post she ever made —a selfie on the beach with the setting sun painting the ocean an orange hue. The caption read “ To new beginnings. ”
A few hours later, her body had been found in a luxury suite at one of Victor Kane’s hotels in Santa Monica.
Empty wine bottle. Empty pill bottle. No signs of struggle. Case closed. But I didn’t buy it.
I navigated to the video section and began scrolling before stopping on an older one titled Wandering West – Hidden Gems in Santa Fe . The instant I hit play, her voice wrapped around me like a ghost.
“Hey guys! Today I stumbled across this teeny, hole-in-the-wall café. No signage. No website. Just the smell of cinnamon and the sound of jazz pouring out of the windows.”
She spun the camera, revealing a courtyard bathed in golden light. There was a mural painted on one wall that fit the adobe vibe of her surroundings.
“The owner, Diego, said the mural’s about heartbreak,” Sarah continued.
“I definitely see it. But I will say… It’s hard to feel anything but happy when surrounded by this beauty and sipping on a lavender chai.
” She held up a mug and beamed. “Ten out of ten. Would happily risk heartbreak for a taste of this.”
It was impossible not to see pieces of Amber and myself in her.
When my high school girlfriend told me she was pregnant, I thought my life was over. I could barely take care of myself, let alone another human. We were both young. Only sixteen. And I was a foster kid who would age out of the system in a little over a year. I didn’t have parents who supported me.
I didn’t have foster parents who supported me.
Regardless, I refused to make this sort of decision for her. It was her body, after all. So I told her I’d stand by her, no matter what path she chose.
She chose adoption.
I helped her through it all. Went to doctor appointments with her when her mother refused to acknowledge the pregnancy. Held her hand during every second of labor. Afterward, when she sobbed into my chest as they took our baby away, I just held her.
I still remembered the sound of that wail. The kind of pain that guts you raw. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what she was going through. She later told me it was the most difficult thing she’d ever done.
But also the most selfless.
She knew we couldn’t give the baby the life she deserved. So she did what was necessary to make sure our baby never went without, like I so often did at the time.
I didn’t think I’d ever see our daughter again, considering it was a closed adoption.
But when Amber reached out to tell me she’d been diagnosed with stage four cancer, I hacked the sealed adoption records. I knew she’d want to know our daughter was safe. That it might make things easier.
Like we hoped, Sarah had a happy childhood. Raised by two loving people. Gave her the stability we never could. Supported her as her travel vlog took off.
I often considered approaching her. Not to tell her who I was, but to see her up close. Look into her eyes. Bask in her smile.
I never did.
She had a life. A family. I was just the man who gave her away.
It still didn’t change how I felt about her.
Still didn’t make me any less angry over what happened to her.
“Okay, it’s three AM.” Sarah’s voice surrounded me as I watched a more recent video from a year ago, this one titled No Sleep in New York: 36 Hours in the City that Never Shuts Up . “I’m definitely tipsy and possibly hallucinating a jazz band is playing on a fire escape.”
She laughed, spinning the camera toward a neon-lit alleyway. “Tomorrow I’m checking out an underground art gallery my friend told me about. The artist goes by Nocturne. Apparently, it’s invite-only and vaguely illegal. I’m in love already.”
I may have never met Sarah face-to-face, but from her videos, it was obvious she was curious. Adventurous. She said yes to the world like it had never burned her.
No wonder Victor Kane was drawn to her.
According to her brother, she met him during her travels. Had no idea who he really was.
Soon, she was rearranging flights and changing travel plans just to spend time with him. For almost two years.
Then she saw him on the news as reporters speculated about a possible run for Governor of Florida.
And beside him was his wife.
During their next arranged meeting, she planned to break things off.
Her body was found hours later.
I scrolled back up and clicked on the last video she ever posted, shot in Santa Monica before her death. The last recorded piece of her life.
She wore a white dress, her dark hair loose, skin sun-kissed and glowing. The light caught her just right. It always did.
“I almost didn’t film this one,” she said, her voice softer than usual. “But I figured I’d share it anyway. This place is too beautiful to keep to myself, especially during sunset.”
She turned the camera toward the sea, the sun melting into the horizon like gold.
“Sometimes, the best views come right before everything changes.”
I’d watched this particular video close to a hundred times. By this point, I’d memorized every grain of sand. Every silhouette.
But tonight, as the man walking along the beach briefly looked toward the camera, I sucked in a breath. Hit pause. Backed up. Rewatched. Then hit pause again, my mind reeling.
I zoomed in, squinting at the screen to make sure I wasn’t losing my mind. That my brain wasn’t playing tricks, making me see things I wanted to see.
I slid the image of the frozen frame over to the screen containing the photo of the man who’d tried to abduct Ariana, placing them side by side.
There was no mistaking it. Same scar. Same jawline.
Same man.
He was there. With Sarah. In Santa Monica. Hours before her death. On the beach outside the hotel.
Jumping to my feet, I grabbed the phone and dialed Blake’s number, pacing the length of the room.
He picked up on the second ring. “Hey, boss man.”
“Look at Sarah’s reels and watch the Santa Monica video. Now,” I barked out, my voice clipped and urgent.
“I have. Probably as much as you.”
“Have you watched it since feeding our friend to the alligators?”
“No.”
“Then watch it again. Pause it when the guy walking on the beach turns toward the camera.”
“Okay…,” he drew out, his tone heavy with skepticism.
But he still did as I requested. I heard keys click over the line, followed by Sarah’s faint voice.
“Shit,” he cursed seconds later.
“You see it, too, don’t you? The scar?”
“I certainly do.”
“Is it him?”
“I’ll need to clean up this footage to confirm, but from what I can see right now? Yeah. It’s him.”
My breath left me in a rush, my brain spinning as I tried to make sense out of what this could mean. I was usually so focused and in control. Always looking at a situation with a level head.
Nothing about this situation had been normal, though.
Not since I learned Sarah had supposedly committed suicide.
“So we have this guy we still haven’t been able to ID…,” I began as I started pacing again, “in the same place as Sarah hours before she’s killed.”
He didn’t remind me there was still no physical evidence of foul play. Blake knew as well as I did something about this situation didn’t add up.
“Then a few months later, that same guy attempted to abduct the wife of the man who was having an affair with Sarah.”
“Could be a coincidence,” Blake offered.
I stopped mid-stride. “You know how I feel about coincidences.”
“I do,” he sighed. “But it’s still a possibility.”
“No,” I said, sharper now. “This isn’t random. It’s a connection.”
“Or a job,” Blake shot back quickly. “This guy was probably a gun for hire. The fact that he possibly had something to do with Sarah’s death and also tried to abduct Ariana?—”
“Means Victor is most likely involved in both.”
“Or maybe Victor Kane didn’t have anything to do with Sarah’s death in the first place. He owned the damn hotel. Would he really shit in his own back yard?”
From the beginning, Blake had raised his doubts about whether Victor was responsible. How could that prick not be involved, though? There may not be a proverbial smoking gun. But there was something better.
“He has motive, means, and opportunity,” I reminded Blake.
“Sarah was there to break things off with him. Victor’s a guy who’s used to being in control so he got angry.
Maybe he didn’t mean to kill her, but he did.
” I swallowed hard. “Then he bribed the authorities to make it look like a suicide. It’s the only explanation that makes sense. ”
He blew out a long sigh. “Something doesn’t feel right, especially with this latest development. Why would Victor pay someone to abduct his own wife?”
“Maybe she found out about the affair and threatened to go to the press? Or learned Victor killed a woman?”
“Or… Maybe someone else is responsible.”
The line went quiet again, but the room felt like it was pulsing. I stared at Sarah’s frozen smile on the screen, the man behind her already fading into the shadows.
For the first time since I learned about Sarah’s death, since I started digging into Victor’s life with the vengeance of a man chasing justice, I felt something other than conviction.
Now, I felt doubt.