Chapter.7
997 Words
MIA'S POV
I find Ethan in his office at four PM. He's on the phone CNN, standing at the window, and he holds up the same one finger Victoria used this morning. *Wait.*
I sit. I wait. I watch his reflection in the glass and wonder how much of what Jason said is true and how much was engineered to make me walk out of here.
He hangs up and turns around.
"The legal team said you were cooperative." He comes to his desk but doesn't sit. "What did Black say to you?"
"*Jason.*" I correct him. "His name is Jason."
Ethan looks at me for a moment. "You're angry."
"Was your mother committed?"
The air in the room changes, Just a subtle drop in temperature.
"Yes," he says.
"By my father."
"Yes."
"And you've known that since you were nineteen."
"Eighteen." He sits now, slowly. "I found the court records when I was eighteen. Forged signatures, a doctor my father had on payroll, testimony from two of his lawyers claiming she was delusional." His voice is completely flat. "She wasn't delusional. She was inconvenient."
I absorb that. "Jason told me this."
"I know. I heard." He meets my eyes. "Company building."
Right. Every word I say in here, he hears.
"He wanted me to think you're obsessed. That I'm collateral damage in a vendetta that has nothing to do with me."
"He's partially right." Ethan doesn't flinch. "I *am* obsessed. I've spent ten years building this case. You don't do that without it consuming something." He leans forward. "But you're not collateral damage. You're going to die, Mia. You told me that. And the person responsible for your murder learned everything she knows from your father. Lily didn't invent poison as a solution. Your family taught her that problems get buried."
I think about my grandmother. About the documents Ethan hasn't shown me yet. About the things still coming that I haven't told him, because I keep forgetting I'm the one who knows the future here.
"I need to tell you something," I say. "About the climax of all of this. What happens when it all comes apart."
Ethan watches me.
"Margaret. My mother. She doesn't go down with the rest of them." I keep my voice level. "She positions herself as a whistleblower. She'll get immunity. She'll walk away clean."
Something crosses his face, but it was gone so quickly like it never came
"How clean?"
"International clean. She'll be in Europe before the verdict."
He's quiet for a long moment. "You're telling me this now."
"I'm telling you because Jason's visit reminded me that everyone in this situation has a private angle. Including you." I meet his gaze. "I want to know mine. Not the version you recite when you need me compliant. The real one. What happens to me when this is over?"
Ethan stands up and walks to the window again. I'm starting to understand that's what he does when he doesn't have an answer that's safe to give.
"Originally," he says, slowly, "you were part of the collateral. A Carter by name and by association. My case doesn't discriminate."
*Originally.*
"What changed?"
"You didn't run when I expected you to. Most people, when they realize they're being used, they run or they attack." He turns around. "You sat down and kept working. That's either courage or stupidity and I haven't decided which yet."
"It's neither," I say. "It's desperation."
Something in his expression shifts, barely perceptible.
"Then we have that in common." He crosses back to his desk and opens a drawer, and slides something across to me. A photograph, printed on plain paper.
A young woman, maybe twenty-six, with dark hair. My father's jawline on a woman's face.
"Victoria," I say slowly.
"My half-sister. Different mother, same worthless father." Ethan watches my face. "She's been inside your family for two years. As an assistant, and a confidante, Lily's best friend." He pauses. "And she's been feeding me everything."
Victoria. Lily's *best friend*. The woman who told me this morning that Lily called the main line four times?
Of course she knew.
"How many people in this are exactly who they appear to be?" I ask.
"Fewer than you'd like." He sits down. "David Martinez. My assistant. He's…." He stops.
Something about that pause makes my stomach drop.
"He's what?"
"David has his own affiliations." Ethan's jaw tightens slightly. "I've been managing that particular complication for six months. He's loyal enough for now."
*Loyal enough for now* is not the same as *loyal.*
"You don't trust your own assistant."
"I trust his usefulness. That's not the same thing." He straightens the photograph and slides it back into the drawer. "Trust is a liability in this kind of work, Mia. You of all people should understand that."
I stand up to leave. At the door, I stop.
"Thirty-five thousand," I say. "That's what I owe you."
"Yes."
"I want to add something to the contract." I turn around. "If I earn my way to zero—if I pay off every penalty—you tell me everything. Every angle, every player, every private arrangement. Including whatever David is into." I hold his gaze. "I want no more surprises."
Ethan looks at me for a long moment.
"Thirty-five thousand," he says carefully. "That's a lot of no's."
"I'm practicing." I open the door. "Goodnight, Mr. Black."
I'm halfway down the hall when his voice comes through the intercom.
"Well done. You're at thirty thousand."
I stop walking.
I never told him about the *no* I almost said to his face just now—the *no* I swallowed three times before I walked into that office.
He wasn't counting the conversation. He was counting something else.
I keep walking. But for the rest of the elevator ride down, the rest of the cold commute home, I can't stop trying to figure out what I did, and when—that he noticed before I did.
- Writer
