Chapter 2: The Call
969 Words
Elena stared at the screen.
The phone continued ringing.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Her father’s old number.
A number that had not existed for three years.
Her fingers went cold.
Adrian stepped closer.
“Don’t answer it.”
Elena looked at him.
“Why?”
“I don’t know who’s calling.”
“But it’s my father’s number.”
“Exactly.”
The phone stopped ringing.
For a moment, there was only the sound of rain hitting the pavement.
Then it rang again.
Elena’s heart pounded.
She pressed the answer button.
“Hello?”
Silence.
She swallowed.
“Who is this?”
Nothing.
Then a faint breath came through the speaker.
Elena’s eyes widened.
“Hello?”
A voice finally answered.
“Are you alone?”
She froze.
She knew that voice.
It was older, weaker, but she knew it.
“Dad?”
Adrian’s expression changed.
Elena’s grip tightened around the phone.
“Dad, is that you?”
The line went silent.
Then the voice spoke again.
“You shouldn’t have opened the letter.”
Elena stopped breathing.
“Where are you?”
“Listen to me carefully.”
The voice sounded frightened.
“Don’t trust anyone around you.”
Her eyes slowly moved toward Adrian.
“Why?”
“Because the person who betrayed your family is closer than you think.”
The call suddenly ended.
“Dad!”
Elena stared at the screen.
The call was gone.
She immediately called the number back.
A recorded message answered.
This number is not in service.
Her stomach dropped.
Adrian looked at her.
“What did he say?”
Elena didn’t answer.
“What did he say, Elena?”
“He told me not to trust anyone.”
Adrian went quiet.
Then Elena noticed something.
“You knew.”
His eyes narrowed.
“Knew what?”
“You knew my father was alive.”
“No.”
“Then how did you know that call would happen?”
“I didn’t.”
“You told me not to answer before I even knew who was calling.”
Adrian stepped toward her.
“Elena, I was trying to protect you.”
“You’ve been saying that since you came back.”
She held up the letter.
“Five years ago, you disappeared. Now you return with a letter from my dead father, someone calls me from his old number, and you’re telling me to trust you?”
“I never asked you to trust me.”
“Then what do you want?”
Adrian looked at her for several seconds.
“You.”
The word caught her completely off guard.
His voice softened.
“I came back because I realized leaving you didn’t save you. It only left you alone with people who were lying to you.”
Elena looked away.
“It’s too late.”
“Is it?”
She didn’t answer.
Adrian took a step closer.
“I loved you then.”
Elena’s eyes burned.
“And you expect me to believe you still do?”
“I never stopped.”
Her heart betrayed her.
For one dangerous second, she wanted to believe him.
Then she remembered the years she had spent picking herself back up.
“You don’t get to come back and expect everything to be the same.”
“I don’t.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.
“I brought something for you.”
He opened a photograph.
Elena stared at the screen.
It showed her father standing beside a man she had never seen before.
But that wasn’t what frightened her.
Behind them was a building.
A building Elena recognized immediately.
Her father’s old private office.
She looked at Adrian.
“When was this taken?”
“Three days before your father died.”
Her heart began racing.
“My father told me he had never met this man.”
“I know.”
“Then who is he?”
Adrian’s expression hardened.
“That’s what I’ve been trying to find out.”
Elena looked back at the photograph.
There was something familiar about the stranger’s face.
She zoomed in.
Then she froze.
A second figure was reflected in the glass behind them.
She couldn’t see the face clearly.
But she recognized the clothes.
A dark suit.
A silver watch.
Her father’s closest business partner had always worn one exactly like it.
Elena’s voice became barely audible.
“That’s Mr. Carter.”
Adrian frowned.
“Are you sure?”
“My father trusted him more than anyone.”
Adrian took the phone from her.
“Then we have a problem.”
“What problem?”
He zoomed in on the photograph.
There was a date written on the corner.
Elena read it.
Her face went pale.
“That date…”
“What?”
“My father was supposed to be out of the country that week.”
Adrian stared at her.
“He wasn’t.”
Elena looked at him.
“What do you mean?”
“I checked his travel records.”
He paused.
“Your father never left the city.”
Silence filled the space between them.
For three years, Elena had believed her father’s final days were simple.
Now everything she thought she knew was beginning to collapse.
Then Adrian’s phone buzzed.
A message appeared.
He read it.
His expression changed.
“What is it?” Elena asked.
He hesitated.
“Adrian.”
He turned the screen toward her.
It was a photograph.
Of Elena.
Taken only minutes earlier.
Standing beside him in the rain.
Her heart dropped.
Below the photograph was a single message:
“You were warned. Leave her alone.”
Elena stared at the screen.
Then another message arrived.
“Because if you don’t, she will discover what her father died trying to hide.”
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