His Brother's Ex, His Unborn Child

Chapter 24

ELENA

Sophia called it leverage.

I called it a conversation.

The distinction mattered because leverage implied I had gone into it with a plan and the truth was more complicated than that. I had gone into it with a phone and a question and the particular patience of a woman who had learned that silence was its own kind of pressure.

Liam had been calling since the papers were served. Not constantly because he was too careful for that. But regularly, in the rhythm of a man keeping a line open rather than genuinely trying to reach someone. I had been letting them go to voicemail from the Carlyle where Liam didn't know my room number and couldn't find me because I had told no one except Sophia and Isla.

On Tuesday, he texted instead.

I found something of yours at the apartment. Something important. I think you'd want it back.

I looked at the message for a long time.

He was fishing. He didn't have anything of mine that mattered.

But Liam didn't know what I had taken. He was guessing at leverage. Which meant he was desperate enough to guess.

I called Sophia.

"He's testing you," she said immediately.

"I know. But I was thinking about something else."

"Tell me."

"He's been calling regularly. Not to talk but to keep the line open. But if I called him back — if I gave him a reason to believe I was softening—" I stopped. "He has a quality when he thinks he's winning. He gets expansive. He says more than he means to."

Sophia was quiet for a moment.

"Elena," she said. "In New York, one-party consent applies to recordings. You can legally record a conversation you are a party to without informing the other person."

"I know," I said.

"How close can you get him?"

I thought about four years of Liam's voice. The register it dropped to when he was comfortable. The things that came through when the performance had run low and something more careless emerged underneath.

"Close enough," I said.

**

I called him back that afternoon.

He answered on the first ring — which told me everything about how carefully he had been waiting. His voice arrived warm and slightly surprised, the tone of a man who had not expected this and was rapidly recalibrating.

"Elena." He exhaled. "I didn't think you'd call."

"You said you found something," I said.

"I did. Something from your parents — a photograph, I think, from before we were married. It was in the back of the hall closet. I thought you'd want it."

I looked at the photograph of my parents already on the hotel dresser where Isla had brought it three weeks ago.

"That's kind of you," I said.

"Of course."

His voice had settled into warmth now like someone who believed he had found an opening.

"How are you? How is the baby?"

"We're well."

"Good. Elena, I've been thinking. A lot. About us, about everything. I think we made some mistakes — both of us — and I think if we could just sit down and talk, without lawyers and papers between us—"

"What kind of mistakes do you think we made?" I said.

I kept my voice soft. Open. The voice of a woman who might be considering what he was saying.

He took it.

"I think I was too focused on work," he said. "Too absent. I know you felt that. And the night we argued — the vase — that was wrong. I know it's important to you. I've been sick about it."

"You've been under a lot of pressure," I said.

"I have." He exhaled. "The business, the pregnancy, worrying about you — Elena, I've been so worried about you. That night at the lakehouse, what happened to you — I've never forgiven myself for not being there."

I said nothing.

I let the silence sit.

"I should have been more careful," he said. "I should never have left you alone on that porch. I've thought about it so many times. What I could have done differently."

"What should you have done?" I said quietly.

"I should have been there," he said. "Instead of—" He stopped.

"Instead of what?"

Silence.

"Liam." My voice was very gentle. "Instead of what?"

"I was at the car." His voice had changed — something underneath the warmth now, something that came through when the performance ran low. "I should have come back sooner. I heard something and I should have gone back to you immediately instead of—"

He stopped again.

The silence lasted four seconds.

"Instead of calling someone?" I said. It was just a guess.

The line went very quiet.

I had not planned to say that. It had arrived from somewhere underneath my composure — the accumulation of weeks of evidence and certainty and a photograph of a lakehouse sent to my gallery address.

I felt him recalibrate on the other end of the line.

"I called security," he said. "For the property. When I heard the noise."

His voice had leveled — the warmth gone, replaced by the careful evenness of a man who had just heard something that told him the conversation had changed shape.

"Elena. What are you asking me?"

"Nothing," I said. "I'm glad you called someone."

"I think we should meet in person," he said. "This conversation—"

"I'll have Sophia's office call Gerald tomorrow," I said pleasantly. "About the photograph — you can leave it with the building concierge. I'll have someone collect it."

I ended the call.

I sat at the desk with the phone in my hand and let the recording run for three more seconds before I stopped it.

Eleven minutes and forty seconds.

I listened to the last two minutes. That was enough.

It wasn't a confession. But it was a man who had been on that porch and heard something. He called someone and was now very carefully not saying who or why. Combined with everything else — the compounds Dr. Chen had found, the lakehouse photograph, the second envelope, the second phone I had seen for a fraction of a second in the bedroom — it was a thread that Sophia could pull.

I called her.

"I have something," I said.

"How much?"

"Eleven minutes. The last two are what matter."

I heard her sit forward. "Send it."

I did.

Then I put the phone down.

"Getting there," I said quietly.

**

Sophia called back at seven.

"It's not a confession," she said.

"I know."

"But combined with what we have — it puts him on that porch. It puts him making a call. It establishes his knowledge of what happened and his decision not to prevent it." She stopped. "Elena, this is enough to reframe everything. His lawyers will know it the moment I put it in front of them."

"Will it be enough to make him sign?"

"Not yet. We need one more thing. Something that connects him directly to the men — a payment, a call, something traceable." She stopped again. "But we're close."

I looked at the city through the window.

"How close?" I said.

"Days. Maybe a week."

"Then let's finish it," I said.

"Elena." Her voice dropped. "One more thing."

"What?"

"Liam's lawyer called this afternoon. Gerald Fitch." She stopped. "He wants a meeting. Tomorrow. He said it's urgent."

I looked at the city.

Gerald Fitch didn't call meetings unless something had changed.

"Tell him we'll be there," I said.