PART 2 The moment my boyfriend kissed another woman in the middle of Atlanta’s busiest airport, I kissed a complete stranger to save my pride
PART 2
For three full seconds, nobody in the boardroom moved.
Even the city outside the glass walls seemed to fall quiet.
Thirty floors above downtown Atlanta, morning sunlight spilled across the long polished table, touching crystal water glasses, leather portfolios, and the pale faces of executives who looked as though they had walked into a meeting and found a storm waiting for them.
At the head of the table sat Daniel Han.
Not the stranger from the airport.
Not the man whose waist I had clung to in a moment of wounded pride.
Not the man who had looked at my cheating boyfriend and called me his fiancée with the calm confidence of someone changing the weather.
This Daniel wore power like a second skin.
His black suit was simple, perfectly cut, without a single unnecessary detail. His expression gave away nothing except control. Around him, the senior directors of Han Media sat with their backs straight and their hands folded, suddenly looking less like decision-makers and more like students waiting to be called on by a principal.
And then there was me.
Ava Brooks.
Junior brand strategist.
Recently betrayed girlfriend.
Accidental airport actress.
Apparently the woman who owed the new owner of my company an explanation for kissing him in public.
My throat went dry.
Across the room, Mitchell Carter stood near the far wall with the sales team. His eyes were fixed on me, his jaw tense. He looked exhausted, pale, and angry in the way guilty people often did when they realized guilt alone would not make others forgive them.
The blonde woman from the airport was nowhere in sight.
Of course she wasn’t.
My humiliation had apparently decided to attend Monday morning alone.
Daniel’s faint smile remained for only a second before it disappeared. He shifted his attention back to the room, and every person there seemed to remember how to breathe.
“Please sit,” he said.
Everyone sat immediately.
I remained standing for half a second too long before dropping into the nearest empty chair beside Nora, my closest friend at work. She leaned toward me without moving her lips.
“Do you know him?”
“No,” I whispered.
Her eyes widened.
“That sounded like a yes.”
“It’s complicated.”
“Ava,” she breathed, “complicated is when you accidentally use your boss’s mug. This is a corporate hostage situation with eye contact.”
I pressed my lips together because laughing would have been inappropriate, and crying would have been worse.
Daniel opened a slim folder in front of him.
“As of this morning,” he said, “Han Holdings has completed its acquisition of the majority interest in this company. Han Media will continue operating, but there will be changes in leadership, financial oversight, client management, and internal reporting.”
The words were professional. Calm. Almost ordinary.
But the air in the room felt charged.
Our previous CEO, Richard Vale, sat two chairs away from Daniel, his expression stiff and colorless. He had always been loud in meetings, the kind of man who interrupted women and called it efficiency. That morning, he did not interrupt anyone.
Daniel continued, “No layoffs are planned this week.”
A tiny ripple of relief moved through the room.
“This week,” Nora whispered.
I gave her a warning look.
Daniel’s eyes flicked briefly in our direction. Nora straightened so quickly her pen rolled off the table.
“No layoffs are planned,” Daniel repeated, with just enough emphasis to make it clear he had heard her, “unless internal review uncovers misconduct, theft, falsified accounts, or intentional damage to the company’s clients.”
That ripple of relief vanished.
Someone coughed.
Mitchell looked down.
I noticed.
I did not want to notice. I did not want anything more to do with him. But when you have spent three years learning the language of someone’s face, betrayal does not erase fluency overnight.
Something about that sentence had landed on Mitchell like a stone.
Daniel closed the folder.
“This company was mismanaged,” he said. “That ends today. Some of you will find that uncomfortable. Some of you will find it overdue. I suggest you decide which group you belong to before noon.”
No one spoke.
“Department heads will meet with Ms. Park throughout the day. Everyone else should return to work. Miss Brooks, remain for a moment.”
My stomach dropped.
Every head turned toward me.
Heat rose to my face so fast I thought the room might see it.
Mitchell took half a step forward. “Why does she need to stay?”
The question left his mouth before he seemed to understand what he had done.
The room went even quieter.
Daniel looked at him.
It was not anger in his expression. That would have been easier to understand. It was patience. Cold, precise patience.
“And you are?” Daniel asked.
Mitchell swallowed. “Mitchell Carter. Senior client relations manager.”
“Then I imagine you understand the difference between a request and an invitation,” Daniel said. “That was not an invitation for comments.”
Mitchell’s face flushed.
A small, terrible part of me felt satisfied.
A larger, more tired part of me felt ashamed that satisfaction still mattered.
People began filing out of the room, some avoiding my eyes, others staring with open curiosity. Nora squeezed my arm before leaving.
“Text me one word when you survive,” she whispered. “Just one. Preferably not ‘run.’”
I almost smiled.
Then the door closed.
The boardroom held only Daniel, me, Richard Vale, and a woman in a cream blazer with silver-rimmed glasses who I assumed was Ms. Park.
Daniel did not look at me immediately. Instead, he turned to Richard.
“You may go.”
Richard stiffened. “I thought we were discussing the transition schedule.”
“We were. Now we are not.”
Richard’s mouth opened, then closed.
For the first time in three years, I watched Richard Vale leave a room without having the final word.
Ms. Park gathered a tablet from the table. “Mr. Han, your ten o’clock has already arrived.”
“Move it to ten-thirty.”
“Of course.”
She left as silently as she had entered.
Then it was just us.
I stood because sitting felt too vulnerable.
Daniel looked at me across the table.
In the airport, his gaze had seemed unreadable.
Here, under office lights and behind glass walls, it felt worse. It felt as if he could read every page I was trying to keep closed.
“Miss Brooks,” he said.
“Mr. Han.”
His eyebrow lifted slightly. “That is very formal, considering yesterday.”
My face burned. “Yesterday was a mistake.”
“I disagree.”
I blinked. “You disagree?”
“A mistake suggests carelessness. What you did was desperate, impulsive, and strangely committed.”
“That’s not better.”
“It was not meant to be.”
I drew in a slow breath, trying to gather the pieces of myself into something dignified. “I’m sorry. I should never have done that. I didn’t know who you were. I didn’t know you were connected to this company. I didn’t even know your name.”
“I know.”
“And I definitely didn’t know you would call me your fiancée.”
The corner of his mouth moved, not quite a smile. “You asked me to pretend I knew you for ten seconds. I improvised.”
“You improvised a lifetime commitment?”
“It seemed effective.”
“It was insane.”
“It was also believable.”
I hated that he was right.
For one breathless moment, I remembered the warmth of his hand at my waist, the way his voice had settled over the chaos around us, and the shocking relief I had felt when he stood between me and Mitchell’s humiliation.
Then I remembered the boardroom.
The suits.
The title.
The way everyone lowered their eyes.
I wrapped my arms around myself. “Is this going to affect my job?”
His expression changed.
Not softened exactly, but something in it shifted.
“No,” he said. “Your position here will be evaluated based on your work, not on a ten-second performance at an airport.”
“Good.”
“You seem surprised.”
“I kissed a stranger who turned out to be my new boss. I think surprise is reasonable.”
“Fair.”
The calmness of his answer unnerved me more than anger would have.
I looked toward the door. “Then is there anything else?”
“Yes.”
Of course there was.
Daniel picked up a folder and slid it across the table.
My name was printed on the tab.
AVA BROOKS.
The sight of it sent a chill down my arms.
“What is that?”
“Your employee file.”
“Why do you have it?”
“I reviewed several files last night.”
“Several?”
“Yes.”
I did not touch the folder. “And mine happened to be one of them?”
“Yours became relevant.”
“That’s a very unsettling sentence.”
“It is an honest one.”
I stared at him. “Relevant to what?”
Instead of answering, Daniel opened the folder and turned it so I could see the top page.
It was my résumé. Old. The one I had submitted when I applied to Han Media nearly two years earlier. Below my work history, under education, my father’s name appeared in the emergency contact section.
Elliot Brooks.
Daniel tapped the page once.
“Your father worked in logistics consulting before he passed away.”
My fingers went cold.
The room seemed to tilt just slightly.
“How do you know that?”
“It is in your background check.”
“No,” I said. “The file says his name. It doesn’t say what he did.”
Daniel was quiet for a moment.
That silence told me more than his answer could have.
My voice lowered. “Why were you looking into my father?”
His gaze held mine. “Because his name appeared in documents related to this acquisition.”
I almost laughed because the sentence made no sense. My father had been gone for five years. He had never worked for Han Media. He had never even liked advertising. He used to say marketing was just poetry wearing expensive shoes.
“That’s impossible,” I said.
“I thought so too.”
The words sat between us, heavy and cold.
My father had died of a heart attack on a rainy October evening. I had been twenty-three. He had been the kind of man who brought home cinnamon rolls on Fridays and left notes on the refrigerator that said things like, Don’t forget you are braver than your worst day. After he was gone, my mother had folded into grief so completely that I had learned how to pay bills before I learned how to breathe without expecting him to call.
He was not a man who belonged in Daniel Han’s acquisition documents.
He belonged in old photographs, voicemail recordings I could not delete, and a blue scarf still hanging in my closet because it smelled faintly of his cedar soap for almost a year after the funeral.
“What documents?” I asked.
Daniel closed the folder.
“You are not under investigation, Miss Brooks.”
“That does not answer my question.”
“No,” he said. “It does not.”
Frustration sparked through my fear. “You can’t bring up my dead father and then decide the conversation is over.”
His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.
For the first time, Daniel Han looked less like a man carved from control and more like someone deciding how much truth a stranger could survive.
“I can tell you this,” he said. “Years ago, your father consulted for a company that moved sensitive corporate materials for several private firms. One of those firms later became connected to Han Holdings.”
“That sounds vague on purpose.”
“It is.”
“Why?”
“Because there are people in this building who may have been using old records to hide current problems. Until I know who, I won’t say more in a glass room.”
I glanced at the transparent walls around us.
Beyond them, employees pretended not to stare.
My skin prickled.
“Are you saying my father did something wrong?”
“No.”
The answer came quickly. Firmly.
Some of the fear in my chest loosened.
Daniel leaned back slightly. “Everything I have seen suggests the opposite.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means your father may have noticed something others missed.”
The world outside the glass blurred.
My father’s voice came back to me suddenly, soft and tired during the last months of his life.
Some doors are locked for a reason, Ava. And some are locked because someone is hiding inside.
I had thought he was talking about business stress.
I had thought he was tired.
I had thought many things because grief teaches you all the ways memory can become a punishment.
Daniel watched my face carefully.
“You recognize something,” he said.
I looked away. “I don’t know.”
“That is not the same as no.”
“No,” I whispered. “It isn’t.”
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Then my phone buzzed in my pocket.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
I knew before I looked who it was.
Mitchell.
I pulled it out despite myself.
I’m sorry.
Please talk to me.
You don’t understand what you saw.
Then another message appeared.
Stay away from Daniel Han.
I stared at the screen.
My pulse changed.
Daniel noticed.
“Carter?” he asked.
I turned the phone toward him without thinking.
His eyes moved across the messages. His expression did not change, but the room suddenly felt colder.
“He sent that just now?” Daniel asked.
“Yes.”
“Do not reply.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“Good.”
The sharpness of that single word made me bristle. “For the record, I don’t take orders well.”
“I assumed as much.”
“Then stop giving them.”
“It was advice.”
“It sounded like an order.”
“Then I will rephrase.” His gaze met mine. “Replying to him may give him information he does not deserve.”
That stopped me.
“What information?”
“Whether you are frightened. Whether you are angry. Whether you are alone.”
I looked down at the phone again.
Mitchell had once known everything about my days. My coffee order. My mother’s birthday. The songs I played when I cleaned my apartment. Which side of the couch I curled into when I was tired. The way I went quiet when something hurt too much to name.
Now even a text felt like a door he might use to walk back in.
I locked the screen.
Daniel’s voice became quieter. “You do not owe him a conversation simply because he wants one.”
The words slipped under my defenses before I could stop them.
I hated that he was the one saying them.
I hated that I needed to hear them.
“I have work,” I said, because feelings were suddenly crowding the room.
“Yes,” Daniel replied. “You do.”
I reached for the door.
“Miss Brooks.”
I stopped.
His expression was unreadable again. “For now, tell no one about your father’s name appearing in the documents.”
“Why?”
“Because secrets are safer when fewer people know they exist.”
“That sounds like something from a crime movie.”
“It is also true in corporate audits.”
Despite everything, a laugh escaped me. Small. Unsteady. Real.
Daniel looked faintly pleased.
Then I left before that pleased expression became something I wanted to understand.
By lunchtime, the entire office knew enough to know nothing accurately.
Whispers followed me down every hallway.
By the printer, two interns stopped talking when I approached.
In the kitchen, someone asked if I had “known about the acquisition early,” which was a polite way of asking if I had kissed my way into job security.
At my desk, Nora spun her chair toward me with the intensity of a detective who had given up sleep and ethics.
“One word,” she said. “You promised one word.”
“I survived.”
“That is two words.”
“I’m under stress.”
“I’ll allow it.” She leaned closer. “Now explain why the new owner looked at you like the final chapter of a mystery novel.”
I opened my laptop. “He didn’t.”
“Ava.”
“He asked about the airport.”
“And?”
“And I apologized.”
“And?”
“And he said my job is safe.”
“And?”
I stared at her.
Nora narrowed her eyes. “There is an ‘and.’ I can feel it.”
I wanted to tell her.
Nora had known me through bad haircuts, office politics, my mother’s surgery, and the time Mitchell forgot our anniversary and convinced me I had remembered the wrong date. She was not just a work friend. She was the person who sent soup when I got the flu and angry voice notes when I doubted myself.
But Daniel’s warning sat in my mind.
Secrets are safer when fewer people know they exist.
So I gave her the truth I could afford.
“And Mitchell keeps texting.”
Her expression softened immediately. “Oh, honey.”
“I’m fine.”
“No one who says ‘I’m fine’ in that tone is fine.”
“I will be.”
“That I believe.”
My eyes stung, and I blinked hard.
Nora reached across the desk and squeezed my hand. “You don’t have to process three years of betrayal before lunch.”
“I wish someone had told my nervous system that.”
“He’s a coward,” she said. “A polished, handsome, calendar-invite-sending coward.”
I let out a breath that was almost a laugh.
Then my email chimed.
A message from Ms. Park appeared at the top of my inbox.
Subject: 2:00 p.m. Strategy Review
Miss Brooks,
Mr. Han requests your attendance at the two o’clock strategy review for the Bellamy Hotels account. Please bring any campaign materials, notes, and performance summaries from the past two quarters.
Regards,
Grace Park
Nora read it over my shoulder.
“Oh.”
I closed my eyes.
“That,” Nora said, “is either very good or very bad.”
“At this point, I’d accept boring.”
But nothing about the day had any intention of becoming boring.
At two o’clock, I walked into the smaller conference room carrying my laptop, three folders, and the determined expression of a woman who had decided not to faint on company property.
Daniel sat at the far end with Ms. Park beside him. Richard Vale was there too, along with Mitchell, two finance directors, and the head of creative, Sandra Miles.
Mitchell’s gaze snapped to mine the second I entered.
I ignored him and took the empty chair farthest from both him and Daniel.
Daniel noticed.
Of course he noticed.
“We are reviewing Bellamy Hotels,” he said. “Their contract renewal is in six weeks. Revenue from this account has declined fourteen percent despite increased spending. I want to know why.”
Richard cleared his throat. “Market softness, mostly. Travel patterns shifted. The client demanded stronger results than the budget allowed.”
“That is interesting,” Daniel said. “Because the budget increased.”
Richard blinked. “Not in practical terms.”
Daniel nodded once to Ms. Park.
She tapped her tablet, and a chart appeared on the screen. Clean. Brutal. Impossible to misunderstand.
Bellamy’s media spend had gone up.
Engagement had gone down.
Invoices had gone sideways into categories with names like “relationship development,” “premium partner access,” and “special placement support.”
My stomach tightened.
Sandra leaned forward. “I’ve never seen those categories.”
“Neither have I,” said one finance director carefully.
Daniel looked at Mitchell. “You managed client relations on this account.”
Mitchell shifted. “I coordinated communications, yes. Spending allocations went through finance and executive approval.”
Richard’s face hardened. “Careful, Mitchell.”
Daniel’s eyes moved from one man to the other.
There it was again.
A thread.
Thin, hidden, but visible if you knew where to look.
I suddenly remembered Mitchell coming home late in expensive shirts I had never seen him buy. Weekend calls he took in the hallway. The way he once snapped his laptop shut when I walked into the room carrying tea.
At the time, I had told myself trust was a choice.
Now I wondered how often trust was just blindness with good intentions.
“Miss Brooks,” Daniel said.
I straightened. “Yes?”
“You worked on Bellamy’s spring campaign.”
“I helped develop the regional messaging strategy.”
“Did you recommend the current spend allocation?”
“No.”
“Who did?”
Silence.
My fingers curled around my pen.
Every instinct told me to be careful. Mitchell was in the room. Richard was watching. Daniel was waiting. And the old Ava, the one who liked peace, who smoothed over tension, who swallowed discomfort so other people could remain comfortable, would have said she didn’t know.
But that woman had stood in an airport holding white roses while her boyfriend kissed someone else.
I was tired of protecting people from consequences they had earned.
“I recommended shifting thirty percent of the spend into local partnerships and targeted digital placements,” I said. “The proposal was rejected.”
“By whom?”
I looked at Sandra.
She looked genuinely confused.
“I never rejected it,” Sandra said.
My heart began to pound.
Daniel’s gaze stayed on me. “Who told you it was rejected?”
I did not look at Mitchell.
I did not have to.
His voice cut in quickly. “That was months ago. Nobody remembers every internal conversation.”
“I remember,” I said.
The room turned toward me.
Mitchell’s expression warned me to stop.
For three years, that look had worked.
Not today.
“You told me Bellamy didn’t want community-driven messaging,” I said. “You said they preferred premium placement packages and executive partner events.”
Mitchell forced a laugh. “Because that’s what the client indicated.”
“No,” Sandra said slowly. “Bellamy specifically asked for warmer messaging. They wanted local relevance.”
Richard’s chair creaked as he leaned back.
Daniel said nothing.
The silence invited truth the way a locked door invited a key.
I opened my folder and pulled out the original deck. My hands were steady now, which surprised me.
“This was my proposal,” I said. “It included regional copy, local influencer partnerships, and three nonprofit tie-ins. It was never presented to the client.”
Daniel held out his hand.
I passed him the deck.
He read the first few pages. Something in his eyes sharpened.
“This is good,” he said.
The compliment was quiet. Professional.
It still warmed my face.
Sandra turned toward me. “Ava, why didn’t you tell me this was killed?”
I swallowed. “I thought you knew.”
Her expression softened with regret.
Mitchell muttered, “This is being blown out of proportion.”
Daniel closed the deck.
“No,” he said. “For the first time today, something is being described accurately.”
Mitchell’s face darkened.
Daniel looked at Ms. Park. “Pull every Bellamy email from the past nine months. Include deleted threads, attachments, budget revisions, and meeting notes.”
Mitchell stood. “You can’t just—”
Daniel did not raise his voice.
“Sit down, Mr. Carter.”
Mitchell sat.
Not because Daniel threatened him.
Because everyone in the room understood that power did not need to shout when it was certain of itself.
The meeting ended twenty minutes later with three new audits, two silent executives, and one campaign deck that had somehow become evidence.
As I packed my laptop, Mitchell moved toward me.
“Ava.”
I kept walking.
He followed me into the hallway. “Ava, stop.”
I turned so suddenly he almost bumped into me.
“No.”
He blinked. “No?”
“No, I’m not stopping because you said my name like you still have the right to decide what I do.”
Pain crossed his face. It might have moved me yesterday.
Today, it only exhausted me.
He lowered his voice. “You don’t understand what’s happening here.”
“I understand enough.”
“No, you don’t.” He glanced toward the conference room door. “Daniel Han isn’t some noble rescuer. His family gets involved in businesses for reasons. You think he helped you at the airport because he’s kind?”
I said nothing.
Mitchell stepped closer. “He knew who you were.”
The floor seemed to shift under me.
“What?”
“He knew,” Mitchell said. “Before yesterday. Before the airport. Ask him why he was really there.”
My mouth went dry.
Behind Mitchell, the conference room door opened.
Daniel stepped out.
The hallway went still.
Mitchell’s expression tightened, but he did not look away from me.
“Ask him,” Mitchell said quietly. “Ask him about your father.”
Then he walked past me and disappeared around the corner.
I stood there with my laptop pressed against my chest, my heartbeat suddenly too loud in my ears.
Daniel approached slowly.
“What did he say?”
The question was careful.
Too careful.
I turned to face him. “Were you at the airport because of me?”
For a moment, Daniel said nothing.
And in that moment, I had my answer.
My chest tightened. “You did know who I was.”
His expression remained controlled, but something behind his eyes darkened.
“Yes.”
The word landed harder than I expected.
I stepped back. “Yesterday, when I kissed you, you already knew my name?”
“Yes.”
“You let me make a fool of myself.”
“No.”
“You stood there while I begged you to pretend you knew me, and you actually did.”
“Ava—”
Hearing my first name in his voice made everything worse.
I lifted a hand. “Don’t.”
He stopped.
The hallway around us was too bright, too clean, too full of people pretending not to listen.
“Why?” I asked.
Daniel looked toward the glass doors of the conference room, then back at me. “Not here.”
I laughed once, sharp and humorless. “That seems to be your favorite answer.”
“Because it keeps being true.”
“I don’t care.”
“You should.”
“I am done being told what should frighten me.”
Something in his face shifted again.
Respect, maybe.
Regret, maybe.
It was gone too quickly to name.
“I was at the airport because my team was tracking someone connected to the acquisition,” he said quietly.
“Mitchell?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
His eyes held mine. “The woman he kissed.”
The world narrowed.
The blonde woman.
The red dress.
The irritation in her eyes when she turned and saw me.
“She’s part of this?” I whispered.
“Yes.”
“Who is she?”
“Claire Voss. Consultant. Fixer. Sometimes she enters companies before financial irregularities surface. Sometimes she leaves right before they collapse.”
My skin went cold. “And Mitchell?”
“We are still determining whether he was involved with her personally, professionally, or both.”
I thought of the kiss.
The confidence.
The absence of surprise.
“Both,” I said.
Daniel did not disagree.
My anger stumbled, losing its balance beneath the weight of something larger.
“So you knew Mitchell was cheating?”
“I suspected he was connected to Claire. I did not know about the relationship until the airport.”
“But you knew me.”
“Yes.”
“Because of my father.”
“Yes.”
The word was quiet this time.
Almost reluctant.
People moved at the end of the hallway. Phones rang. Somewhere, a copier jammed and beeped with cheerful persistence.
My life, inconsiderately, continued.
I looked away from him. “I need air.”
“Ava—”
“I said I need air.”
He did not follow when I walked away.
For that, I was grateful.
And strangely disappointed.
I spent the next ten minutes in the stairwell between the twenty-ninth and thirtieth floors, sitting on a concrete step with my arms wrapped around my knees.
The stairwell smelled faintly of dust and industrial cleaner. It was ugly and quiet, which made it perfect.
My phone buzzed again.
This time it was my mother.
Mom: Just checking in. Had a strange dream about your dad last night. Call me when you can.
I stared at the message until the words blurred.
A strange dream about your dad.
The timing made my chest ache.
Before I could reply, another message arrived from an unknown number.
No greeting.
No name.
Just a photo.
I tapped it open.
It showed a page from an old ledger, photographed in dim light. The paper was yellowed at the edges. Several company names were listed in neat handwriting.
Halfway down the page was a name I knew better than my own.
Elliot Brooks.
Beside it, written in black ink, were three words.
DELIVERED TO HAN.
My breath caught.
A second message appeared.
Your father kept a copy. Mitchell knows where it is.
Then a third.
So does Daniel.
I stood too quickly, nearly dropping the phone.
The stairwell seemed to close around me.
Delivered to Han.
Mitchell knows where it is.
So does Daniel.
The door above me opened.
Footsteps descended.
I clutched the phone against my chest as Daniel appeared on the landing.
He stopped when he saw my face.
“What happened?”
I wanted to hide the screen. I wanted to demand answers. I wanted to trust him. I wanted to never trust anyone again.
All of those instincts collided inside me.
Daniel took one step down.
“Ava.”
This time, his voice was not commanding.
It was careful.
Human.
I turned the phone toward him.
He read the messages.
For the first time since I met him, Daniel Han lost a fraction of his composure.
It was small. A tightening around the mouth. A stillness too sudden to be natural.
But I saw it.
“You know what this is,” I said.
He looked from the phone to me.
“Yes.”
“Then tell me.”
He drew in a slow breath.
“That ledger was believed to be destroyed five years ago.”
Five years.
The year my father died.
My hand tightened around the railing.
“What did my father deliver to your family?”
Daniel’s eyes darkened with something I had not expected.
Not guilt exactly.
Grief.
Before he could answer, my phone buzzed again.
Another unknown message.
This one contained no photo.
Only a location.
And a time.
Centennial Olympic Park. Tonight. 8:00 p.m.
Come alone if you want to know why your father really died.
Daniel reached for the phone, then stopped himself before touching it.
His voice dropped.
“Ava, who sent that?”
I looked up at him, my heart pounding so hard it hurt.
“I was hoping you would tell me.”
