Billionaire’s Twin Deception

Chapter 15

JANICE'S POV

I returned to my apartment exhausted.

Jack is already asleep on the couch with one arm hanging off the cushion and a dinosaur toy trapped beneath his cheek.

The sight almost makes me smile.

I kneel beside him and reach for his backpack, preparing for tomorrow, checking homework, focusing on normal things and safe things.

A school folder slips free and without thinking I open it.

Family Tree Assignment, my eyes move down the page.

Mother: Janice Soto

Father: Blank.

The familiar emptiness twists painfully inside my chest then I notice additional writing under it.

Small and messy. My breath catches because Jack filled it in himself.

In uneven childish handwriting he wrote: *Maybe Uncle Eden?*

Everything inside me goes still because Jack isn't just asking questions anymore.

He's starting to believe the answers.

I stare at the worksheet for nearly a full minute.

The paper trembles between my fingers and the words remain exactly where I left them.

Jack wrote his name not because somebody told him to but because he thought of it himself.

The realization settles like ice beneath my skin and slowly I look toward the couch.

Jack is asleep, one arm wrapped around a dinosaur unaware he's just shattered every illusion of control I've spent five years building.

I lower myself onto the edge of the couch.

My fingers brush through his hair. "Jack."

He doesn't wake, good, because I have no idea what to say.

The next morning I wait until breakfast, until the moment feels normal enough to survive then I slide the worksheet onto the table.

Jack immediately recognizes it.

"Oh."

I keep my voice steady. "What did you write here?"

His eyes drop toward Eden's name then he shrugs like this is the least important thing in the world.

"He was missing."

My heart twists painfully. "Jack......."

He scoops another spoonful of cereal. "What?"

"Why did you write his name?"

The answer is childish. "He likes me."

I force myself to breathe. "Lots of people like you."

Jack shakes his head. "Not like that."

The spoon freezes halfway to my mouth and Jack keeps eating.

"He listens."

Something inside me breaks a little because he isn't wrong.

The conversation follows me all day.

By the time I reach the kitchen my exhaustion has become impossible to hide.

Celine notices first. "You look awful."

"Good morning."

"You slept?"

"Some."

Celine narrows her eyes. "You're doing that thing again."

"What thing?"

"The pretending thing."

I grab a clipboard and Celine steals it immediately.

"I'm serious."

"So am I."

She steps directly into my path and her expression softening slightly. "Who are you running from?"

The question hits too hard because the answer is standing inside this building, walking these hallways, asking questions and getting closer every day.

I look away first and that tells her more than any answer could. Across the kitchen Chan watches the exchange, later he quietly takes over inventory without being asked.

Then handles supplier calls, then fixes a scheduling disaster before I even notice it exists.

Neither of them says anything and the concern follows me everywhere, even from people who don't know why.

Around lunchtime Eden appears again. At this point nobody even pretends to be surprised.

Celine sees him first. "Oh look."

Chan groans. "The billionaire's back."

A few cooks laugh while Eden ignores them. His attention lands on me as usual and my pulse still reacts.

Five years should've been enough but it wasn't.

Later that afternoon Jack ends up at the hotel again briefly after school only for a little while until my sitter arrives.

What begins as a five-minute conversation turns into thirty then forty then longer.

I watch from across the corridor while Eden listens to another dinosaur lecture.

Jack talks and Eden listens, neither seems capable of stopping.

The connection happens effortlessly, people might not understand why it terrifies me.

But I do because every moment between them feels like something stolen, finally trying to find its way home.

By evening dark clouds gather over the city.

Rain begins shortly afterward then the storm arrives, wind rattles windows, thunder rolls across the city.

Power flickers once, twice and the hotel remains barely operational.

Staff left early wherever possible as transportation slowed across the city, subway delays piled up, roads began flooding, and within an hour most of the building had emptied, leaving Eden and me alone, not completely alone, but close enough.

The storm traps us inside the executive lounge overlooking the city.

Rain lashes against the glass and lightning flashes across the skyline.

For a while neither of us speaks then Eden quietly says, "I still hate storms."

I glance toward him. "Why?"

He looks out at the city. "Hospital nights."

The answer settles heavily between us because I know exactly which hospital nights he means.

The silence changes and becomes something else.

We talk about real things instead of work, schedules, or unanswered questions, grief, loss, loneliness, and the strange ways people learn to survive pain and the conversation flows far too easily, as though five years never happened, the betrayal never happened, and we're simply two people sharing old wounds.

For one dangerous moment I forget to be afraid then Eden looks at me and says quietly, "I don't know what's happening between us."

My heart cracks instantly because I do.

I know exactly what's happening because the truth is catching up to us, closing the distance with every question, every conversation, and every moment as the walls we've spent years hiding behind begin to collapse and sooner or later everything buried under them will be exposed.

The storm finally begins fading near midnight as roads reopen, transportation resumes, and people start moving through the city again, but when I eventually make it home, the apartment is too dark.

"Jack?"

I step inside quickly.

"Jack?"

Silence.

The living room is empty, the bedroom is empty and bathroom is empty.

My pulse spikes violently. "Jack!"

I search every room, the closets, the hallway, even the laundry room but find nothing, and then I see a note sitting on the kitchen table from the babysitter.

My hands shake as I unfold it and read the short message: *Couldn't sleep, wanted fresh air, went to the nearby park*.

The note is hours old, and as that hits, the room begins to spin.

My phone rings with an unknown number and I answer immediately.

"Hello?"

A man's voice responds. "Ms. Soto?"

"Yes."

A brief pause follows then, "We found your son's backpack."

The world stops, everything inside me freezes.

"Where's Jack?"

Silence stretched, the officer exhales slowly then says, "We need you to come down here immediately."