Chapter 7 - The FireThe fire moved faster than anything I had ever seen.
Yet there we were.
Nathaniel’s security team coordinated with airport authorities while Amelia spoke with federal investigators handling potential intellectual-property theft.
I sat in the back of the SUV clutching my phone.
Northstar’s chief technology officer, Priya Desai, was remotely shutting down systems connected to the stolen authentication key.
“Can you kill it entirely?” I asked.
“Working on it.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means Ryan has an encrypted local copy of something. We can block new access, but I can’t erase what he already downloaded.”
“How much?”
“Unknown.”
My stomach tightened.
“Priya.”
“I know.”
She lowered her voice.
“Olivia, whatever happens, this isn’t your fault.”
I looked out the window.
“I gave him access to my home.”
“You were engaged to him.”
“Apparently that was my first cybersecurity failure.”
She didn’t laugh.
That was how I knew things were serious.
We reached Terminal Eight twenty-eight minutes later.
Security officers met us inside.
One of them approached Nathaniel.
“Kessler passed security forty minutes ago. He’s booked on a flight to Zurich.”
“And Ryan?”
“No boarding pass under Prescott.”
Danielle stopped.
“He uses another name sometimes.”
We all looked at her.
She sighed.
“I’m aware that every sentence I say makes this worse.”
“What name?” Amelia asked.
“Ryan Cole.”
Megan’s surname.
My disgust deepened.
Airport staff searched.
Thirty seconds later, they found a passenger under that name.
Same flight.
Gate Thirty-Two.
We moved quickly.
I had never appreciated how enormous an airport could feel until something worth hundreds of millions of dollars was moving through it.
At the security checkpoint, Nathaniel and I were escorted through a side lane.
Danielle stayed with Amelia.
“You don’t need to come farther,” I told Nathaniel.
“You’ve said that several times today.”
“And yet you keep coming.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He glanced at me.
“You know why.”
I did.
That was the problem.
We reached the international concourse.
Gate Thirty-Two was already boarding.
Passengers lined up.
I scanned the crowd.
No Ryan.
No Martin.
Then Nathaniel pointed.
“There.”
Martin Kessler stood near the windows speaking into his phone.
Gray coat.
Carry-on.
No Ryan.
Security officers approached him discreetly.
Martin saw them.
Then he saw us.
He ran.
For a man in his late fifties wearing Italian shoes, he moved surprisingly fast.
He knocked into two travelers, abandoned his suitcase, and sprinted toward another concourse.
Airport officers pursued him.
Nathaniel started forward.
I grabbed his arm.
“You’re fifty-one, not Batman.”
“I exercise.”
“Not relevant.”
Despite everything, he almost laughed.
Security caught Martin less than a minute later.
But his backpack was empty.
No laptop.
No hardware key.
Amelia arrived with Danielle.
“Where’s Ryan?”
Martin refused to speak.
Investigators searched the gate area.
Then my phone buzzed.
A photograph.
From Ryan.
My laptop sat on a table beside a cup of coffee.
Behind it was a familiar skyline.
Not the airport.
Manhattan.
The message read:
Wrong man.
I showed Nathaniel.
“He used Martin as bait.”
Another message arrived.
Midnight. Alone.
I typed back.
No.
Three dots appeared.
Then:
Your company won’t survive stubbornness.
I replied:
Neither will your freedom.
He stopped responding.
Martin was escorted away for questioning.
Technically, authorities still needed warrants and evidence before anyone could simply arrest Ryan for every crime we suspected.
But the net was tightening.
We returned downtown.
By seven, my church reception had ended.
Guests were gone.
Social media, unfortunately, had not ended.
Claire showed me her phone.
A video of Danielle entering the church had already accumulated millions of views.
Someone had captioned it:
BRIDE’S SISTER ARRIVES PREGNANT IN SAME DRESS.
Another clip showed me asking Nathaniel whether his offer was still open.
That one was spreading even faster.
“Fantastic,” I muttered.
Claire winced.
“You’re trending.”
“Wonderful.”
“People think you married Nathaniel.”
“I did not.”
“Internet accuracy has never been our civilization’s defining strength.”
Danielle sat nearby in silence.
Her phone had hundreds of missed calls.
She looked destroyed.
Not theatrically destroyed.
Actually destroyed.
I sat beside her.
“Have you called Evan?”
She shook her head.
“You should.”
“I can’t.”
“You may be carrying his child.”
“He’ll hate me.”
“Possibly.”
She looked at me.
“Thanks.”
“I’m not going to lie to you anymore just because the truth is uncomfortable.”
Her eyes lowered.
“I deserve that.”
“Yes.”
She nodded slowly.
“Yes, I do.”
That was the first time Danielle accepted responsibility without adding an excuse.
It mattered.
Not enough.
But it mattered.
Nathaniel joined us.
“We’ve confirmed Ryan has not left the country.”
“How?”
“His known passports have been flagged.”
Danielle frowned.
“What if he has another identity?”
Amelia answered.
“We’re checking.”
My phone rang again.
This time it was Ryan’s mother.
I almost ignored it.
Then answered.
“Eleanor?”
She was crying.
“Olivia, Ryan came to the house.”
I stood.
“When?”
“Ten minutes ago.”
“Is he still there?”
“No.”
“What did he want?”
“He went into Charles’s study.”
My stomach dropped.
“What did he take?”
“I don’t know. Charles tried to stop him. They argued.”
“Is Charles okay?”
A pause.
“Ryan hit him.”
Every conversation around me stopped.
“What?”
“He pushed Charles into a cabinet. He cut his head. Ambulance is here.”
Nathaniel was already signaling security.
“Eleanor, listen to me. Did Ryan say where he was going?”
“No.”
“Anything unusual?”
“He kept asking where his father kept the old Switzerland files.”
Nathaniel looked sharply at Amelia.
“What files?” I asked.
Eleanor sobbed.
“I don’t know.”
Nathaniel did.
He ended another call and looked at me.
“Prescott Global used to maintain a private banking relationship in Geneva.”
“So?”
“So Ryan may be trying to access money his father controlled decades ago.”
Danielle suddenly stood.
“Lake house.”
We turned.
“What?”
“Ryan told me once his father kept emergency documents at their lake house in Connecticut.”
Eleanor heard through speakerphone.
“The Darien property?”
Danielle nodded.
“He said nobody uses it anymore.”
Eleanor inhaled sharply.
“There’s a safe there.”
I looked at Nathaniel.
“How far?”
“Ninety minutes.”
Amelia checked the time.
Eight twelve.
Midnight was less than four hours away.
We left immediately.
On the drive north, Danielle finally called Evan.
She asked for privacy.
I gave it to her.
Twenty minutes later she returned, eyes red.
“He wants a paternity test.”
“That’s reasonable.”
“He also said he’ll come to the doctor appointment tomorrow.”
“That’s kind.”
“I don’t deserve him.”
“Probably not right now.”
She laughed through tears.
“You really stopped comforting people.”
“I spent thirty-four years doing it incorrectly.”
Danielle looked out the window.
After a moment, she whispered, “I hated you.”
“I know.”
“No. I mean… I hated that you seemed certain.”
I stared at her.
“Certain?”
“You always knew what you wanted.”
I almost laughed.
“My wedding exploded this morning.”
“I know.”
“I clearly didn’t always know.”
She looked at me.
That landed somewhere.
Then headlights appeared through the trees.
The old Prescott lake house stood ahead.
One upstairs window was glowing.
Nathaniel’s security team stopped us at the gate.
A guard approached.
“Someone’s inside.”
I looked toward the house.
“Ryan?”
“We don’t know.”
Then a figure appeared behind the upstairs window.
A man.
He looked down toward our vehicles.
And disappeared.
Seconds later, flames erupted from the back of the house.
Danielle screamed.
May you like
And I realized Ryan wasn’t trying to steal the documents anymore.
He was trying to destroy them.
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