Lorenzo’s hand closed around Ethan’s wrist before he could lift the phone from beneath the table.
The movement was quiet, almost gentle, but Ethan’s face twisted with pain.
“Who are you calling?” Lorenzo asked.
“No one.”
The phone slipped from Ethan’s fingers and struck the white tablecloth.
Its screen showed an active call to a number without a name.
A man’s voice came through the speaker.
“Tell them she’s there.”
My mother made a strangled sound.
Lorenzo pressed the speaker button and placed the phone in the center of the table.
Around us, the restaurant remained unnaturally still.
The owner had locked the front doors.
Two Moretti security men stood beside them while the remaining diners watched in frightened silence.
“Who is this?” I asked.
The caller did not answer me.
Instead, he said, “Ethan, you had one job.”
Chloe turned toward her fiancé.
“What is he talking about?”
Ethan’s eyes jumped between Lorenzo and the exits.
“It’s a business associate.
This has nothing to do with you.”
“He just asked whether I was here,” I said.
“It has everything to do with me.”
Tobias opened the black folder.
Beside the forged death certificate, he placed a trust agreement bearing a photograph of me at seventeen, a copy of my fingerprints, and the name SCARLET VALE.
The figure printed beneath the asset summary made the air leave my lungs.
The trust controlled a minority interest in the Moretti Grand, three waterfront properties, and an investment portfolio worth more than forty million dollars.
Chloe stared at the number.
Then she looked at Ethan.
“You said it would become mine after we married.”
My mother closed her eyes.
The silence that followed was worse than shouting.
I turned slowly toward my sister.
“What money?”
Chloe’s face changed as she realized what she had admitted.
“I didn’t mean—”
“Yes, you did,” Lorenzo said.
His voice was calm, but the security men at the doors straightened.
Ethan tried to pull his wrist away.
Lorenzo released him only after Tobias took the phone.
The caller laughed softly through the speaker.
“So the little heiress finally knows.”
I gripped the back of my chair.
“Who are you?”
“Ask Vivian.
She has always been better at stories than I am.”
My mother’s shoulders began to shake.
Lorenzo leaned toward the phone.
“You wanted proof Scarlet Vale was alive.
Now you have it.
Come near her and you will not leave Seattle.”
The call ended.
For several seconds, all I could hear was my mother crying and the faint clink of silverware from a waiter frozen near the kitchen.
“Start talking,” I said.
Vivian Hayes looked older than she had ten minutes earlier.
