The twenty-minute walk to Marcus’s Upper East Side apartment was a blur of cold resolve. The initial shock and fear from his call had hardened into something steely. The locket was a weight over my heart, and the words of the letter were a shield and a sword in my mind. I wasn’t going to his place as a chastised little sister. I was going as a woman armed with the full, devastating truth.
I didn’t bother buzzing. I used the key he’d given me years ago, the metal cold in my fingers. The familiar hallway, with its muted wallpaper and quiet hum, felt like the past. I was stepping back into a world of old dynamics that no longer fit.
He was waiting in the living room, standing at the window with his back to me. He didn’t turn when I entered. The tension in the room was a physical presence, t
