52. Chapter 52
Chapter fifty-two
Alex
My phone vibrates in my pocket. It’s nonstop. I don’t have to look to know who it is. It’s Reese.
Something in my gut restricts. He doesn’t call unless it matters.
“I need to take this love.”
Lina nods.
I get up from my bed and answer the call, turning slightly away. “Talk to me.”
There’s no preamble on Reese’s end. No easing into it.
“Alex,” he says, voice clipped. “We’ve got a situation.”
I straighten. “What happened?”
A beat. Just long enough to feel wrong.
“David Allister was found dead early this morning.”
The words land heavy. Cold. “Shit.”
“Home residence,” Reese continues. “Preliminary report says stroke. No immediate indicators of foul play.”
My jaw tightens.
“When do we think it happened?” I ask.
“Time of death looks to be late last night. Sometime after he left the bakery.”
The timing hits like a punch to the ribs.
My eyelids fall for a brief second, running through every conversation, every look, every detail Lina relayed. The confusion on his face. The sincerity. The man who didn’t know why she’d been shut out. The man who didn’t know someone wanted her dead.
“This is getting messy,” I say flatly.
“I know,” Reese replies. “But right now? On paper? It’s clean. Too clean.”
My grip tightens on the phone.
“Any connection back to the contract?” I ask.
“Not yet,” he says. “But I overheard Elinor in David’s office call Blake, their Accountant. Let me play the recording.”
I wait, and then I hear Elinor’s voice.
“I told you to make the transactions look more conspicuous. David was able to figure it out. If he could, that’s a problem, Blake. I pay you good money to keep this under the radar. Do your damn job.”
A beat passes.
“I’ll handle it. You do your job, and I’ll take care of the rest.” Elinor hangs up the phone, sighing. Then all we hear is the click of her heels as she leaves the office.
I exhale the frustration, carefully, forcing my expression back into something neutral before Lina can read too much from across the room.
“Keep digging,” I tell him. “Everything. Autopsy. Financials. Security footage. I want timelines.”
“You got it.”
I hang up and turn back to Lina.
She’s watching me now. Fully alert. Reading the tension I didn’t hide well enough.
“What is it?” she asks softly.
I step toward her, heart heavy, mind already racing ten steps ahead.
“I don’t know how to tell you this,” I say carefully.
Her eyes sharpen. “Tell me.”
I hold her gaze. She stills, waiting for me to speak.
“David Allister was found dead this morning.”
The room goes silent.
Lina’s hands go straight to her mouth, shaking her head in disbelief.
Lina sits on my bed, and I can see the wheels turning. A tear escapes her as she sits in shock.
The sight of it twists something inside me. I hate seeing her like this. Hate the way every new revelation seems to ask her to carry another impossible weight. Hate that her first instinct is always to search for a way to blame herself.
As if she’s somehow responsible for the choices made by every terrible person who has crossed her path.
“Is this my fault?” she asks.
“No,” I reassure her.
Not a second of hesitation or a fraction of doubt. Because I know where her mind is going. She’s connecting dots that don’t belong together. Trying to make herself responsible for things she never controlled.
Lina pulls her knees to her chest and hugs them, closing her eyes as tears gather along her lashes.
God. I wish I could take this from her. I wish I could reach into her mind and remove every ounce of guilt she insists on carrying.
Instead, I kneel beside her and rub her back.
A simple reminder. You’re not alone. You don’t have to carry this by yourself.
I press a gentle kiss to the top of her head.
“This is not on you, Lina.”
The tragedy of Lina’s life is that too many people have convinced her she is responsible for surviving what they put her through.
She sits, processing everything.
I stay beside her. Ready for whatever she needs.
“What are you thinking, love?”
She swallows hard. “I just keep thinking about Virginia. I’m so glad she’s not here to bury another child.”
My chest tightens. Of course that’s where her mind goes. Not to herself. She’s grieving for the woman who loved David. A mother. The woman who showed Lina the kindness she deserved. Even now, Lina’s heart somehow finds room for everyone else’s pain.
This isn’t Lina’s doing. It’s the work of Elinor Allister. Has to be. It all ties back to her.
It seems she’s cleaning up loose ends, and this became far more serious than it was an hour ago.
Every thread Reese pulls, every transaction I walked through yesterday under the guise of a fraud agent at the Allister’s‘ bank, points in one direction—Elinor Allister. Only she could have forged David’s signature.
Clean nails. Steady voice. Now, widow’s black worn perfectly right.
But the numbers don’t lie, and neither do people when they think they’re smarter than everyone else in the room.
She’s been moving money for years. Quietly. Strategically. Small shifts at first, then larger ones once Virginia passed. Trust distributions rerouted. Accounts consolidated. Shell entities layered enough to look legitimate—unless you know where to look.
And Reese does.
I don’t think David Allister’s death was planned, at least not this early.
With him gone, Elinor Allister becomes the grieving widow and sole authority. The story she tells herself is simple: take out the husband, eliminate the one and only other beneficiary, collect everything.
I text Reese.
I pocket my phone, my jaw locking into place as the full picture comes into focus.
Elinor thinks she’s the smartest person in every room she walks into.
The kind of woman who mistakes composure for superiority, who believes money and proximity to power make her untouchable.
She’s been surrounded by yes-men and silence for so long that she’s forgotten what real scrutiny feels like.
She believes grief is armor. That widowhood grants her immunity. That people will lower their voices, avert their eyes, and hesitate to ask hard questions because tragedy demands politeness.
She’s counting on sympathy to dull suspicion, on manners to buy her time. And she thinks Lina is a loose end. A complication. A woman she can erase—convinced Lina is alone. Vulnerable. Replaceable.
She’s wrong on all counts.
Because the biggest mistake predators make is assuming everyone else plays by the same rules they do. Assuming restraint equals weakness. Assuming silence means ignorance.
She’s not dealing with someone who wants justice wrapped up in a neat little bow. I don’t care about closure, or courtrooms, or moral satisfaction.
I understand predators.
I know how they think. How they justify. How they convince themselves they’re entitled to take whatever stands in their way. I know how they hide behind institutions, money, and narratives they’ve carefully curated.
And I know how to dismantle them. Methodically and for good.
She made the mistake of turning this into a hunt. Because I don’t miss my targets.