Chapter 7 #2
She picked up another photograph. This one had a date stamp and a still frame of Sophia moving through what looked like a train platform, head slightly bowed, one man ahead of her, another behind. Escort? Protection? Surveillance? Audrey didn’t know.
“What am I looking at?”
“Movement,” he said.
“We should take this to the police.”
“No. If I hand this to the wrong people, it disappears. Or it gets back to the people protecting her.”
Her eyes lifted slowly from the papers. “How deep does this go?”
Another stretch of silence welcomed her question, and this time, she didn’t hold back. Her hand cracked across his face. The sound bounced off the walls within the quiet apartment.
“How dare you?” Audrey hissed.
Alex shifted his head slowly back toward her. A red mark bloomed along his cheek, but he didn’t raise his voice. In fact, he didn’t react the way most people would. Audrey examined him differently.
Alex had always been calm—too calm. Like he was watching the world instead of living inside it. “I was trying to protect you.”
“By lying?” Her breath came faster. “I rotted for ten years while you played detective.”
“I was trying to get you out,” he said. “I didn’t know everything then. I do now.”
Audrey rose abruptly, pacing across the shining floor. The room was too clean and too bright. There was nowhere to hide. “How can I believe anything you say anymore?”
“Because I’m telling you what matters,” he said. “You don’t get everything yet.”
She could feel his stare burning into the back of her neck. He continued. “She surfaced right before your hearing. She probably knew you were alive the whole time. And for some reason, she wanted you in that prison.”
Audrey’s chest constricted. If her mother resurfaced before the hearing, that meant she’d been watching Audrey all this time. Even as a teenager, Audrey had sensed her mother was hiding something larger than affairs or secrets—something explosive, and far beyond their small house.
Alex confirmed it. “She’s been tracking you since your release,” he said. “But Sarai makes you hard to pin down.”
So, the only reason her mother hadn’t found her sooner was the strange protection of her transient life. Sarai rotated locations and left almost no trail.
“What does my mother want with me exactly?”
Alex didn’t respond.
Audrey crossed the room slowly, stopping near the tall windows. The streetlights reflected in the glass, turning her image into a ghost beside the skyline. Someone who wasn’t her mother wanted Audrey free, too—the man from the backyard. The voice. He’d said something about opening doors.
“Doesn’t matter,” she said. “I want her to find me.”
Alex leaned against the counter. “That’s exactly why I’m telling you now.”
She put her finger to the bridge of her nose. “Explain.”
“They’re closing in,” he said.
“Who?”
“The people around your mother.” Scrubbing a hand down his face, Alex forged on. “I spent months confirming what I could without exposing you,” he said. “But someone else is already moving. Your mother isn’t hiding anymore.”
His emotions came to her clearly this time. “You’re scared,” she said.
“I’m strategic,” he replied, loosening his tie for a second time.
“And the strategy now is what?”
“We leave Tolusa. As soon as possible.”
Audrey laughed.
“You don’t get to disappear again and drag me with you.”
“Audrey—”
“No.” A cold rage took hold of her bones, and her fist smashed into the tabletop. The glass shook. “I want everything you have on her before agreeing to anything.”
Alex faltered.
Then—“No.” The words held an air of conclusiveness, and her composure snapped. She pushed.
Alex’s thoughts burst open. In his mind, there were files upon files and photographs, mostly satellite images and a grainy surveillance capture of her mother, standing outside a warehouse. The warehouse was where Sarai had been last week.
Audrey shuddered and noticed Alex was watching her carefully. His dark eyes showed the flame in a way that didn’t feel entirely human.
“You went digging,” he murmured. There wasn’t a trace of surprise from him. He’d been waiting to see if she would.
His thoughts closed again, and guilt ate at her. She sank into the chair beside the fireplace and poured a glass of whiskey with shaking hands. The warm liquid burned down her throat.
Alex came closer and placed a hand gently on the back of her neck. Their foreheads touched. “I can’t blame you for going into my head,” he whispered. “You’re right. I’ve kept too much from you.”
Audrey stared into his eyes. “Then stop.”
For one breath, she thought he might. Thought maybe this was the part where he emptied the whole file onto the table, looked her in the eye, and treated her like the person at the center of her own life.
Instead, his gaze shifted inward. He pulled back, which hurt worse than the lie.
“You still don’t think I can handle it,” she said.
He tilted his head by half a degree, but she didn’t dare read his emotions after violating his mind. “No,” he said. “I think you can handle too much. That’s what scares me.”
She hated that answer because some broken part of her understood it. Audrey tipped the rest of the glass back. If Sophia were alive, Audrey would find her. The woman who destroyed her life was finally within reach. She’d confront the man from the backyard as well. He was somehow tied to the fire.
They would both pay.
And this time—she wouldn’t ask permission.
Alex kneeled beside the chair where she sat. “Audrey.”
She didn’t look up. Her world had been reduced to the sound of her own breathing. “You know who I am,” Audrey whispered. “Now, tell me who you are.”
He looked at her as if he were measuring something, the way a scientist might study an experiment that had finally produced the result he expected. “I kept you ignorant because I thought it would keep you safe,” he said. “That was a mistake.”
“Glad you can finally admit that,” she muttered.
He threaded one hand into his hair. “I’ll tell you where you’re really from.”
Audrey froze.
“In exchange, you’re done. With that club. With Skyler. With the drugs. With all of it.”
Her shoulders sagged. “It’s not that simple, Alex. I owe someone a lot of money. We can’t just vanish and pretend he doesn’t exist. These people I work for are well-connected.”
Erik’s face appeared in her mind. She knew his reputation and the people behind him. They were powerful, and the way they handled debts wasn’t for the weak of heart.
“How much?” Alex asked.
Shame burned her cheeks. She couldn’t meet his eyes. “A lot.”
“More than a few grand?”
A humorless snicker escaped her mouth. “Closer to ten.”
Drugs, rent…survival. Numbing herself had never been cheap.
He swore under his breath. “I’ll get you the money.” Audrey shut her eyes. A warm hand clasped over hers. “We’ll get your mother and the answers to clear your name,” he added. “But we’re not staying here any longer than necessary.”
She expected Alex to keep the rest of his secrets and get up to go to bed, but he surprised her. He continued to hold her hand. “You, me, your family…we’re not like the humans here,” he said eventually. “We never were.”
Audrey stared at him, taking in the consequences of what his words meant. Not for the first time, Audrey wondered if the fire hadn’t been human either. Something inside of her shuttered, as if it was waiting to hear it.
She looked back at Alex slowly and realized that she had absolutely no idea what she was.
If she wasn’t human, what had killed her family?
Audrey laid her hand to the window, the decision hardening inside her.
She thought of all the years she’d waited for someone to tell her the truth or give her a reason, how passivity had fastened her to a life of silence and anguish.
She was done. Everything was razor clear now.
She would find Sophia, unveil the truth about the fire, and reclaim her own life—no matter the cost.
Whatever secrets Alex still held, whatever dangers waited, she intended to find the truth and face her mother at last.