Chapter 9: The Secret Between Us
1540 Words
“Madeline Anderson.”
The name seemed to change the temperature in the apartment.
Ethan looked again at the photograph in his hand.
Ten years younger, Sophia stood beside her sister at the edge of a lake. Madeline had the same dark hair, the same elegant bone structure.
And the same silver bracelet Ethan remembered from that night.
“There’s no mistake?” Sophia asked.
Ethan wished there were.
“I remember the stone.”
Sophia took the photograph from him.
“My father gave us matching bracelets when we turned eighteen. Mine had an emerald. Madeline’s was sapphire.”
Her thumb moved over her sister’s face.
“She disappeared six months after this picture.”
“What did the police say?”
“That she left voluntarily.”
“You believed that?”
“No.”
The answer came instantly.
“Madeline was twenty-six. She worked in compliance for one of my father’s companies. She had an apartment, friends, a career. Then one night she vanished.”
Sophia looked at him.
“And Marcus told everyone she'd probably run away after a family argument.”
Ethan’s chest tightened.
“Marcus knew her?”
“He knew my entire family.”
“How well?”
Sophia hesitated.
“Very well.”
That hesitation mattered.
Ethan waited.
Finally she said, “Before Marcus married me, he dated Madeline.”
Ethan stared.
“What?”
“For almost a year.”
Everything inside him shifted.
The bleeding woman.
Marcus.
The private clinic.
The twelve million dollars.
The photographs.
Sophia.
“You married your sister’s ex-boyfriend?”
“It wasn't like that.”
“I didn't mean—”
“Madeline ended things with him. Two years later, Marcus and I began working together. We didn't start a relationship until much later.”
She looked toward the window.
“By then Madeline was gone.”
“And he never told you he saw her that night?”
“No.”
Anger hardened the word.
Ethan stood.
“We need to go to the police.”
“Not yet.”
He stared at her.
“Sophia.”
“We have a ten-year-old memory, a missing woman, and photographs from an unidentified source. If we accuse Marcus now and we're wrong, we destroy whatever chance we have of finding out what happened.”
“And if we're right?”
Her eyes returned to his.
“Then I have spent eight years married to a man who may know what happened to my sister.”
The calmness in her voice frightened Ethan more than tears would have.
He crossed the room.
“Sophia.”
“Don't.”
“What?”
“Don't look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you're sorry for me.”
“I’m not.”
She laughed bitterly.
“That's a terrible lie.”
“I’m worried about you. Different thing.”
Her eyes lifted to his.
They stood a few feet apart.
Too close for strangers.
Not close enough for whatever this had become.
Sophia looked away first.
“I spent years thinking she left because of me.”
Ethan frowned.
“Why?”
“We fought that week.”
“Families fight.”
“You don't understand.”
“Then tell me.”
Sophia folded her arms tightly.
“She wanted me to leave the family business. She said something was wrong. That people around my father were moving money through shell companies.”
Ethan's attention sharpened.
“Like the twelve million?”
“I don't know.”
“What did you say?”
“That she was paranoid.”
Sophia swallowed.
“I told her she was jealous because our father had started giving me more responsibility.”
Ethan said nothing.
“The last conversation I ever had with my sister ended with me telling her to stop ruining everything.”
Her voice cracked on the final word.
Only slightly.
But Ethan heard it.
He stepped closer.
“This isn't on you.”
Sophia's eyes flashed.
“You don't get to tell me that.”
“No. But I can tell you what I saw.”
She froze.
“That woman wasn't running from her sister.”
Ethan forced himself back into the memory.
“She was terrified of Marcus.”
Sophia stared at him.
“She kept saying he had to give something back.”
“The evidence.”
“Maybe.”
“What else?”
Ethan closed his eyes.
Rain against the windshield.
Madeline crying.
Marcus shouting.
Then—
“One word.”
Sophia stepped toward him.
“What word?”
“Northstar.”
Her face went blank.
“What?”
“She said, ‘If anything happens to me, Northstar proves everything.’”
Sophia grabbed the back of a chair.
“Northstar.”
“You know it?”
She didn't answer immediately.
Then she walked to her overnight bag and pulled out her laptop.
Within seconds she was typing.
Ethan stood behind her.
“What are you searching?”
“Old subsidiary records.”
Names flashed across the screen.
Companies.
Accounts.
Archived entities.
Then Sophia stopped.
There it was.
NORTHSTAR HOLDINGS LLC
Status: dissolved.
Formation date: eleven years earlier.
Dissolution date: ten years earlier.
Ethan leaned closer.
“Who owned it?”
Sophia clicked.
The record opened.
Her face changed.
“No.”
“What?”
She turned the laptop toward him.
The registered manager was:
Victor Lane.
The man who had given Ethan the black case.
Ethan felt the pieces beginning to connect.
“Victor knew Madeline.”
“Or knew Northstar.”
“Same difference right now.”
Sophia opened another corporate record.
“Northstar received transfers from three Anderson subsidiaries.”
“How much?”
She totaled the numbers.
Her expression hardened.
“Eleven-point-eight million.”
Ethan stared.
“Almost exactly what disappeared recently.”
“Yes.”
“So somebody recreated the same scheme.”
“Or never stopped using it.”
A vibration broke the silence.
The burner phone.
Ethan picked it up.
Unknown number.
A message.
IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO MADELINE, COME ALONE.
Below it was an address.
Sophia stood.
“No.”
“I haven't said anything.”
“You were about to.”
“I was about to say we should verify the address.”
“Ethan, absolutely not.”
Another message appeared.
MIDNIGHT.
Then:
DO NOT BRING SOPHIA. MARCUS IS WATCHING HER.
Sophia read over his shoulder.
“We're not going.”
Ethan looked at the clock.
11:18 p.m.
“Someone knows we're together.”
“Which is exactly why this is a trap.”
“Probably.”
“Then why are you considering it?”
“Because traps still contain information.”
“No.”
Ethan looked at her.
“This could be the first person in ten years willing to tell us what happened to your sister.”
“And it could get you killed.”
“So we prepare.”
“We?”
“Yes.”
“The message says come alone.”
“I've started developing a complicated relationship with instructions.”
“This isn't funny.”
“I know.”
Sophia stepped closer.
“If something happens to you because of my family—”
“It won't be because of your family.”
“You can't promise that.”
“No.”
Ethan lowered his voice.
“But I'm not leaving you alone with this.”
For a moment, neither moved.
Sophia’s eyes dropped briefly to his mouth.
Then back up.
Ethan noticed.
So did she.
The air changed.
He could hear her breathing.
A day ago, she had been the untouchable billionaire wife in the back seat of his car.
Now she was standing in his apartment wearing his old gray sweatshirt because her clothes had been damaged in the crash.
And Ethan wanted to kiss her.
That realization hit him hard.
Sophia whispered, “Ethan.”
His phone rang.
The moment shattered.
Marcus.
Ethan answered.
“What?”
Marcus didn't bother with a greeting.
“You need to get Sophia out of your apartment.”
Ethan’s entire body went still.
“Why?”
“Because someone just accessed an old company file.”
Sophia looked at him.
Marcus continued.
“A company called Northstar.”
Ethan’s blood chilled.
“How do you know?”
Marcus’s next words came fast.
“Because whoever accessed it just triggered an alert I've been waiting ten years to see.”
A loud crash sounded through the phone.
Then Marcus cursed.
“Marcus?”
“Take Sophia and run.”
The line crackled.
“Now.”
A second crash.
Then a gunshot.
The call died.
Ethan stared at the phone.
Sophia had gone completely pale.
“What happened?”
He grabbed his keys.
“We're leaving.”
“Where?”
Another sound came from outside the apartment.
Footsteps.
Several sets.
Climbing the stairs.
Ethan looked at the front door.
The handle moved.
Once.
Twice.
Then stopped.
A man's voice came softly through the wood.
“Mr. Carter?”
Ethan pushed Sophia behind him.
The voice continued.
“We know she's in there.”
A pause.
Then:
“Open the door, and you get to live.”
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