“Or he was the reason they died.”
At 2:13 in the morning, Sophie woke crying.
I found Ethan sitting in the kitchen alone.
No bodyguards.
No jacket.
No terrifying reputation.
Just a tired man drinking coffee in the dark.
He looked up when I entered.
“She hungry?”
“Always.”
He warmed a bottle without asking.
I watched him.
“You’ve done this before.”
He froze.
“Bottles?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“You knew exactly what to do on the plane.”
He continued warming the formula.
“My sister had a baby.”
I blinked.
“You said she was nineteen.”
“She was.”
Silence stretched.
I suddenly understood.
“She had a child?”
Ethan nodded.
“What happened?”
His hand tightened around the bottle.
“After Isabelle died, the baby disappeared.”
My heart squeezed.
“How old?”
“Three months.”
“Boy or girl?”
“A girl.”
Something cold moved through me.
I didn’t know why.
Maybe because I was holding Sophie.
“What was her name?”
Ethan stared at the bottle.
“Lucia.”
“And you never found her?”
“No.”
“For sixteen years?”
“No.”
He handed me the bottle.
“Every year on her birthday, I have someone check.”
I sat across from him.
“Why didn’t the police find her?”
“Because officially, Lucia died with Isabelle.”
I stopped feeding Sophie.
“What?”
“No body was recovered.
But everyone accepted that she was in the car.”
“Everyone except you.”
“Isabelle had called me ten minutes before the crash.”
His voice broke for the first time.
“She told me someone was coming to take Lucia somewhere safe.”
A silence settled between us.
Then Ethan smiled bitterly.
“I have spent sixteen years wondering whether I failed both of them.”
I looked down at Sophie.
“No wonder you knew how to hold her.”
He looked confused.
“I don’t.”
“You did.”
Something gentler entered his face.
“Maybe some things don’t require experience.”
Our eyes held.
For a second, the danger disappeared.
The past disappeared.
Even Chicago disappeared.
Then one of Ethan’s men entered.
