Lupita stood, one hand over her mouth.
Ethan did not move for three seconds.
Then he walked to the window.
Chicago glittered outside, indifferent and cold.
Lily was upstairs with a babysitter from corporate security.
Safe.
For now.
Ethan turned back.
“Find Patricia,” he said.
Aaron nodded. “We’re on it.”
Naomi’s voice was careful. “Ethan, what ledger?”
He looked at the roses in his mind.
At Sarah’s hospital room.
At all the nights she had stayed awake beside a laptop while pretending she was only organizing family photos.
“I don’t know,” he said.
But that was not true.
Not fully.
A week before Sarah’s final hospitalization, Ethan had found her crying at the kitchen table with a folder open in front of her.
When he asked what was wrong, she smiled too quickly and closed it.
“Just old numbers,” she had said.
He had been exhausted.
