SECRET TRUTH

Chapter 2: Ethan's Controlled World

POV: Ethan Blackwell

I didn't sleep last night.

Again.

This was the third night in a row that I lay in bed looking at the ceiling, my phone buzzing every five minutes with messages I didn't want to read. My company was falling apart. The stock was falling. Investors were worried. And somewhere in the middle of all this chaos, Sophia was lying to me about something big.

I could feel it.

I had always been able to feel when she was hiding things. It was like a sixth sense I gained after she disappeared when we were kids. After that day I couldn't protect her, I told myself I would never miss the warning signs again. I would always know when something was wrong. I would always be ready to fix it before it ruined everything.

But I couldn't fix this if I didn't know what "this" was.

My phone buzzed again. Another text from my business buddy Marcus: Investors backing out. Meeting at 8 AM. We need answers.

Solutions. Everyone wanted answers. Everyone wanted me to be the guy who had all the solutions, who could control everything with a snap of his fingers. Nobody wanted to know that I was barely keeping it together. Nobody wanted to know that I hadn't slept in three days. Nobody wanted to see that the powerful Ethan Blackwell was actually scared.

I showed up to my job at 7:30 AM.

The city was still dark outside my window. I could see the lights of a million apartments, a million people sleeping calmly, a million people who didn't carry the weight of other people's lives on their shoulders. I envied them.

By 8:00 AM, my office was full of angry men in expensive suits, all wanting to know why their money was disappearing. I gave them data. I gave them promises. I gave them everything except the truth: that I was making mistakes, that my attention was split, that something about Sophia had been wrong for weeks and I couldn't focus on anything else.

"We're pulling out," Marcus said, standing up. "You have two months to turn this around, or we're done."

Two months.

I nodded like I had a plan. I didn't have a plan. I had Sophia's face in my head, smiling too hard at dinner last week, laughing at jokes that weren't funny, avoiding my eyes when I asked her about her new boyfriend.

I had a bad feeling that wouldn't go away.

After the meeting finished and everyone left, I sat alone in my office and thought about what I needed to do. I needed someone I could trust. Someone who wouldn't judge me for asking them to do something that felt wrong. Someone desperate enough that they wouldn't ask too many questions.

That's when I decided to give the new assistant the job.

I had noticed her in the hallway yesterday. Most people who worked here looked at me with either fear or desire. They wanted something from me—money, fame, power. But this girl, Ava, she looked at me like she was trying to be invisible. Like she was scared of taking up too much space in the world.

I recognized that look because I felt it too.

When she knocked on my door this morning, I had seen it instantly. The tiredness behind her professional smile. The way her hands shook slightly when she held the folder. The frantic hope in her eyes mixed with deep sadness. She was carrying something heavy. Something that was slowly crushing her.

I should have left her alone. I should have just let her do her job and not pulled her into my mess.

But I didn't.

Instead, I gave her the task about Sophia. And when I saw the shock on her face, instead of backing away, I made her an offer I shouldn't have made. I told her I'd give her anything she wanted. Money. Help. Whatever she needed.

I could see the moment she was about to say yes.

And then her phone buzzed, and something shifted in her eyes. I watched her read the message, and I watched her face go white. I watched her hand start to shake again, but this time it wasn't sadness. It was fear.

"Is everything okay?" she asked me, but she didn't wait for an answer. She was already backing toward the door.

"Your mother," I said quietly. I didn't know how I knew. I just knew.

She stopped. She turned to look at me with eyes full of tears she was trying not to cry. And she nodded.

"I have to go," she whispered.

I let her leave without stopping her.

But as I sat in my office alone, watching the sun rise over New York City, I realized something that made my stomach drop: I had just paid someone to spy on my sister. I had just gotten a vulnerable girl involved in my mess. And now she was dealing with her own crisis, possibly wondering if she was going to lose her job on her first day.

My phone rang.

It was my helper Susan. "Mr. Blackwell? The new helper never came back. And we have a problem. Sophia is here. She's looking for you. She seems... angry. " My heart stopped.

"Tell her I'll be right there," I said.

I hung up and stood at my window, looking out at the city below. Something was about to break. I could feel it the same way I always felt these things—like a storm coming, like the world was about to shift, like everything I had built was about to come crashing down.

I hit the intercom button on my desk.

"Susan, I need you to find out everything you can about a person. Her name is Ava Chen. I need to know where she went, why she left, and what her mother's situation was. And I need to know now."

"Mr. Blackwell, is this related to—"

"Now, Susan."

I ended the call and headed toward the lift.

When the doors opened on the ground floor, I saw Sophia standing in the hallway, her face twisted with anger and fear. She was holding a manila package, and her hands were shaking.

"We need to talk," she said. "About what Ava Chen's mother is about to tell the hospital. About the money you've been sending her family. About the secret that's going to destroy everything you've built."

My world went dark.

Sophia knew about Ava. She knew about the money. And somehow, she knew something else—something about Ava's mother that could bring me down.

"How do you know about that?" I asked.

Sophia smiled, and for the first time, I realized I didn't know my own sister at all.

"Because," she said, "I've been watching her the whole time. And I'm going to make sure you never hire her again."