Adrian turned his phone toward me again.
There it was.
ETHAN WALKER.
For a few seconds, I couldn’t breathe.
“No,” I whispered.
Adrian watched my face carefully.
“You know him.”
“He’s my husband.”
“Ex-husband?”
I swallowed.
“Soon to be.”
Adrian’s expression hardened.
“What does he want?”
“I don’t know.”
But even as I said it, I remembered the last message Ethan had sent me.
You think you can just disappear with my daughter?
I had ignored it.
Then another.
Elena, you have no idea what you’ve taken.
At the time, I thought he meant Lily.
Now my hands started shaking.
Adrian noticed.
“Security says Ethan didn’t just ask about you,” he said quietly. “He gave airport staff a description.”
“What description?”
Adrian hesitated.
“Your name. Your daughter’s name. And the stroller.”
My stomach dropped.
“How could he know we’d be here?”
“I don’t know.”
The plane touched down.
Nobody around us seemed to notice anything unusual.
Passengers stood, opened overhead bins, complained about luggage, and laughed into their phones.
But two men in dark suits were waiting beyond the aircraft door.
Adrian looked at them.
Then at me.
“Stay beside me.”
“I don’t want trouble.”
“Neither do I.”
He reached for Lily’s stroller.
“That’s why I’m asking you to trust me for the next ten minutes.”
I almost laughed.
Trust.
That word had become dangerous in my life.
Still, I followed him.
The moment we stepped into the jet bridge, the two security men moved closer.
One whispered something into Adrian’s ear.
Adrian stopped walking.
“What?”
The security man looked directly at me.
“We found something.”
“What?”
He handed Adrian a small photograph.
Adrian studied it.
Then his eyes lifted toward me.
“Do you recognize this?”
I looked.
It was a picture of Ethan.
Standing beside a black SUV.
And beside him was another man.
I knew him.
My heart slammed against my ribs.
“That’s Ethan’s brother.”
Adrian’s face changed.
“You’ve met him?”
“Once.”
“When?”
“Three weeks ago.”
The security man stepped forward.
“Mr. Prescott, that’s not Ethan’s brother.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
Adrian handed me the photograph.
The man beside Ethan looked almost identical to the person I’d met.
Same dark hair.
Same jaw.
Same scar near his eyebrow.
But suddenly I remembered something.
Ethan’s brother had told me his name.
Daniel Walker.
Except…
He had introduced himself as Daniel six years ago.
And when I looked closer at the photograph, I noticed something I’d never noticed before.
A tiny tattoo behind his ear.
A black triangle.
My hand went numb.
Adrian saw it.
“You’ve seen that symbol before.”
It wasn’t a question.
I looked at him.
“Yes.”
“Where?”
I couldn’t answer immediately.
Because I had seen it on Ethan.
Years ago.
Before we got married.
Before Lily.
Before everything fell apart.
I had once asked Ethan about it.
He had laughed and told me it was from a stupid college fraternity.
I believed him.
Adrian’s security man took the photograph back.
“That’s not a fraternity tattoo.”
“What is it?”
He glanced at Adrian.
Adrian nodded.
The man lowered his voice.
“It’s a marker.”
“For what?”
“Private security networks. Certain financial organizations use it to identify people who work outside normal channels.”
I stared at Adrian.
“You said you were being filmed on the plane.”
“I was.”
“By Ethan?”
“No.”
He paused.
“By people who were watching me.”
Then he looked at Lily.
“And now they’re watching you.”
My daughter stirred in her stroller.
I immediately moved closer to her.
“What does Ethan have to do with you?”
Adrian didn’t answer.
“Adrian.”
He looked toward the terminal.
“We need somewhere private.”
We entered a secured lounge.
The doors closed behind us.
For the first time since boarding the flight, there was silence.
Adrian sat across from me.
“I owe you an explanation.”
“You owe me several.”
He gave a tired smile.
“Fair.”
He leaned forward.
“I wasn’t randomly seated beside you.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“My assistant changed my seat twenty minutes before boarding.”
“Why?”
“Because someone had been following me.”
My blood ran cold.
“So you knew something was wrong before you met me?”
“Yes.”
“And you still asked me to pretend to sleep on your shoulder?”
“I needed the cameras to believe I was traveling with someone I trusted.”
“You didn’t even know me.”
“I know.”
He looked genuinely ashamed.
“That part was wrong.”
I stood.
“You used me.”
“At first.”
I froze.
“At first?”
Adrian reached into his jacket and placed something on the table.
A photograph.
My photograph.
Taken four years ago.
I stared at it.
It was me.
Standing outside a courthouse.
Holding Lily as a newborn.
But I had never seen the photograph before.
“Where did you get this?”
“We found it in a file connected to Ethan Walker.”
I felt sick.
“What file?”
Adrian’s voice dropped.
“A financial investigation.”
I looked at him.
“Ethan isn’t just cheating on me, is he?”
“No.”
Adrian slid another document across the table.
My name appeared at the top.
Underneath it was a number.
A very large number.
Then a date.
Seven years ago.
The exact month Ethan and I met.
I shook my head.
“What is this?”
Adrian stared at me.
“That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out.”
“What?”
“Why someone opened a private trust in your name seven years ago.”
I couldn’t speak.
“I never opened a trust.”
“I know.”
“Then who did?”
Adrian’s phone rang.
He answered.
His expression changed almost immediately.
“What?”
Silence.
Then:
“Are you certain?”
He stood.
“Lock down the garage.”
I stared at him.
“What happened?”
He ended the call.
“Ethan is here.”
My heart stopped.
“How?”
Adrian looked at the security camera mounted in the corner.
“He wasn’t asking airport staff where you were.”
He turned the monitor toward me.
A live image appeared.
Ethan was standing inside the airport.
Looking directly at the camera.
Then he slowly lifted his phone.
A message appeared on Adrian’s screen.
Adrian read it.
His face went completely still.
I whispered,
“What did he say?”
Adrian turned the phone toward me.
There was only one sentence.
Tell Elena I know she isn’t Lily’s mother.
I stared at the screen.
Then at my sleeping daughter.
And for the first time in five years, a terrifying thought entered my mind.
What if Ethan hadn’t been trying to take Lily from me?
What if he’d been trying to take her back?